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What if you died in one of the Daylight Saving Time months and never got that hour back? Wouldn't that be depressing?
Don't forget to turn your clock back tonight before you go to bed. You don't really have to wait until 2 a.m., in spite of what the graphic on our front page says.
This is the third Halloween we've celebrated together. It is a food holiday of sorts, after all.
I like looking back and remembering how I handled holidays in the past. Last year I actually did some decorating, I see.
The year before I tried to get people to commit to whether they bought candy they knew they were going to eat themselves or not.
This year I have the scientific wherewithal to actually find out. ...
(Costumed children join a Halloween parade in Tokyo on October 25, 2009. Some 1,000 children in Halloween costumes took part in the "Harajuku Omotesando Hello Halloween Pumpkin Parade 2009". Photo credit: TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images)
I talked to Perez Klebahn late yesterday afternoon. He's one of three partners in the new restaurant at the American Visionary Art Museum.
He called to tell me that Mr. Rain's Fun House will have a soft opening tomorrow, Nov. 1.
I asked if it was only for friends and family, and he said no. It's open to the public for brunch 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and dinner 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The cafe's normal day to be closed is Monday, then it will reopen for business Tuesday.
If you go, please post below and tell us something about it.
[Edith Valentine Tenbrink Untitled (From Dawn of a New Day) Oil on canvas board. Photo: Dan Meyers]
I got this e-mail today from John and promised to post something on the blog because I knew nothing about it:
My favorite delivery spot has morphed. Yeti, near Belvedere Square, is no more and now offers Chinese, Indian and American food under a new name. Do you know anything about the owners and the menu? I plan on stopping by sometime this weekend.
Does anyone know anything about it? You could start with the name.
Vudean just posted about Kasper on Tap under an unrelated entry, and I've gotten other comments, so this might be the time to talk about the fragile nature of blogs and why page views matter to me:
EL - can you start a petition to get Rob Kasper's "Kasper On Tap" beer blog back!? He just annoucned its ending :(
I read 3 blogs religiouisly - this one, his, and one unlrelated one not from the Sun.
I need my beer fix!
The problem is it just didn't get the readership it deserved. Some folks enjoy blogging early and often (me) and some seem to prefer reporting and the craft of writing (Rob). The good news is that now he can focus on his column and stories, not just churning out the random musings that are my specialty. .. .
Honestly, I don't think a petition would do any good. The higher ups know he had loyal readers, he just didn't have enough to sustain the blog. The blog universe is so fluid. Even the Sun's blogs, if you haven't noticed, come and go often.
Maybe I can convince Rob to do a beer guest post for me on a semi-regular basis for his regular readers if there's interest.
Now you see why I continue to post my Top 10 lists, which usually generate about twice the number of page views as my other entries. Not every post has to appeal to the widest number of readers, but I do have to have a good mix.
I was bad this week about linking to stories in the print edition. There were just too many other things to talk about. I only just got around to reading Other Reviewer Richard's review of Turp's in Mount Vernon, mainly because it isn't a place I'm going to be eating anytime soon.
That was a mistake on my part. I really loved this paragraph in his review:
When you walk by it, Turp's looks busy all the time; Neo Viccino always looked like an Edward Hopper painting. This turn of events is an illustration of something, surely - of giving people what they want, of the struggling economy. The take-away lesson for me is that, next to location, timing can be the most important ingredient in a restaurant's success.
Timing could be a whole other discussion because it's rare that a restaurant reinvents itself so successfully. ...
Plus, did you notice to the left of the review online there's something called "Topics"? I love that list.
They are:
Edward Hopper
Bacon
Restaurants
In other news, I got an e-mail from someone complaining that McCormick & Schmick wasn't on my Top 10 Seafood Restaurants, which appeared in print Wednesday with some of your comments. I told him that while I wasn't averse to putting chains on the list, the last time I had eaten at M & S, I hadn't had a very good meal. (I gave it a pretty good review when it opened.)
I urged him to comment under the blog post, but I think print readers aren't interested in blogging or bloggers -- even though they'll take the time to send me a letter or e-mail.
In my Table Talk column this week I expanded on several blog posts, including a mini-review of King's Grilled Kabobs in Hampden, but the only new material (well worth a look) is the Deal of the Week, actually Deals of the Week this week.
I was interested in the fact that the restaurant featured, Pazza Luna, is "burning old stock" and selling bottles of wine that presumably are worth much more for $20. I would love for someone who has seen the list and can comment knowledgeably on it to tell us more.
Robert of Cross Keys has made my day, maybe my week, with this fine guest post. My Pikesville source, a guy who tells my husband about restaurants to pass on to me, has been going on for a couple of years about a fabulous Chinese restaurant called the Wigwam. Chinese, not American Indian, which is a little weird. Every time I'm in Pikesville, I look for it but have never found it; and it's not listed in the phone book. Now I know how to find it. Thanks, RoCK! EL
My wife had some projects this week in the suburbs that required my driving out there, so that's where my dining out took place. I visited the Diamondback Tavern in Ellicott City and the Wing Wah in Pikesville. ...
She was working on a writing assignment about seasonal menus in Ellicott City. I’ve always found some very good restaurants there, from Tersiguel's on Main Street to Asian Court, the dim sum place, in a shopping plaza. One of my new favorites is Diamondback Tavern. I just feel the Diamondback does a lot of things right.
They use quality ingredients, many of which they get locally, when you know that it would be very easy for a tavern to just open up a Sysco box and dump the contents into a deep fryer.
They serve comfort food, but they are also willing to take chances with it. By this I mean that old classics you just don’t see anymore, like Scotch Eggs, are on the menu. You’ll also see new creations of comfort food, like the Testudo, which is pulled pork with caramelized banana, onion and avocado on Italian bread.
The Testudo sounds like something you’d assemble in your kitchen at 2:30 a.m. after closing down the bars. However, much like the Caesar Salad -- a dish that actually was thrown together early one morning to satisfy the hunger of people who were drinking all night -- the flavors all seem to complement each other. I couldn’t believe how good it was. It was like a savory bananas Foster.
I went back and forth on whether the sandwich had enough meat on it. The pulled pork was excellent; and because it was seasoned with brown sugar and garlic, it had a nice balance of sweet and savory. I wanted more of it, but I began to wonder if piling on the pork would overwhelm the banana and avocado. I don’t know, maybe a side car of pork would make me happy.
I had a side of cilantro rice with it that I found to be a little bland. I think it needed raw cilantro instead of its being cooked in with the rice.
I also had the Diamondback shrimp, which are sautéed in hot sauce, butter and garlic and topped with Monterey Jack cheese and jalapenos. This dish reminded me a little bit of the BBQ shrimp dishes I’ve had in New Orleans at places like Pascal’s Manale, although Diamondback’s version is heavier on the heat.
The sauce is good, and it calls out to be sopped up with the accompanying bread; but this dish is successful because of the quality of the shrimp, which are cooked perfectly. The window for cooking shrimp between raw and tough is about 15 seconds, and when cheese is added into the equation the time span shrinks to about five seconds. These shrimp were squeezed into that time frame.
About 12 hours after my American comfort food at Diamondback Tavern, I was having another one of my favorite comfort meals: Chinese -- or to be more accurate, American-Chinese at the Wing Wah.
The trip to Wing Wah has become somewhat of a tradition. Next to it is Quick Fix, the only place in Baltimore that can repair eyeglasses. My wife has one, and only one, pair of glasses. She thinks all other glasses -- or all other glasses that my insurance will cover -- are ugly. They are antiques that are quite fragile, and they break about every six months. So every time we need to get the glasses fixed, we wait over a Chinese lunch at the Wing Wah.
Now, I actually love the Wing Wah. It's a classic Chinese restaurant with red booths, Chinese calendar placemats and duck sauce and hot mustard that are served not from packets but from jars that you spoon out. There just aren’t that many places like it any more.
The non-ironic retro nature of the Wing Wah is refreshing, but the food is also good and cheap. For about $6 I got a bowl of egg drop soup, a spring roll and Orange Chicken with fried rice.
The spring roll was forgettable -- it was greasy and had no flavor. The other items, however, were very well prepared.
The egg drop soup was very rich and eggy. It's the kind of soup that's going to give you a healthy and shiny coat. Throw in a handful of the fried noodles, and you get a great contrast of textures.
The Orange Chicken was several all-white meat chunks that managed to maintain their crispy coating in an orange sauce that actually tastes of orange peel instead of corn syrup. The rice wasn’t anything special. I guess it just wasn’t my week for rice.
Sometime around April I’ll be back at the Wing Wah. As for the Diamondback Tavern, I actually have to be in Ellicott City today for a conference, a conference that conveniently ends around dinner time.
(Photo of the Testudo by RoCK)
While many people at the Sun laugh at me as I try to come up with new and exciting Top 10 Tuesday topics that aren't so arcane only four people will call up the list but don't totally compromise my principles (Top 10 Crab Cakes, the Winter Edition), Editor Amanda actually sent me six excellent topics.
Of course, four of the six we've already discussed here, but not this one: Things with Eggs on Top. ...
Last January Bon Appetit magazine declared a poached or fried egg on top of anything -- hash, polenta, pasta, pizza, salad -- "The Trend of the Year." Where do they come up with these things?
Oh, wait. Bon Appetit is published in California.
You would think by now if it's the Trend of the Year it would have made its way to Baltimore. And I have seen a pizza with an egg on top on some menu around here. I just can't remember where.
One thing's for sure. Even with your help I don't think I'll be able to come up with 10 dishes that have a poached or fried egg on top that are served in Maryland restaurants.
(One of the featured culinary dishes on "The Taste of San Francisco" is Warm Ham and Cheese Toast with a Quail Egg on top made by Chefs Steven Rosenthal and Mitch Rosenthal from Townhall restaurant. AP Photo/San Francisco Chronicle, Craig Lee)
Michael has kindly sent me a link to the This Is Why You Are Fat Web site. Thanks, Michael. Speaking of heart attacks on plates, check these photos out. Or rather, don't if you don't have a strong stomach.
Even the deep-fried slices of chocolate cake pictured here are making me queasy. It's something about the foam with the deep-fried cake, ice cream and whipped cream. It's probably just melting whipped cream, and not something the creator thought would improve it, but it looks like dog slobber. Our discussions here have me seeing foam everywhere.
The foam just sends it, and my stomach, over the edge.
(Photo by Southern Comfort courtesy of This Is Why You Are Fat)
Once again as the holidays loom I'm going to throw this request out for your suggestions. Maybe some of you had an office party somewhere good last year and will be willing to tell us about it. As for my office, I'll be happy if we just get a free lunch in the cafeteria again:
As the holidays get nearer and nearer I have a suggestion for an upcoming blog. Your favorite places to have a holiday office dinner/lunch.My husband has put me in charge of his holiday dinner. We need a place with a private semi private area that can accommodate 40 people give or take.Nothing crazy priced.
(Sometimes I come upon weird photos in the archives. The caption for this one is "A man holds a cat with a santa hat for post Christmas sales at an animal shop in Sofia, Bulgaria, Friday, Dec. 26, 2008." AP Photo/Petar Petrov)
Are vegans getting a little more love around Baltimore or is that my imagination?
I keep hearing about vegan bakeries and places that are offering more vegan choices on their menus. Now Emily Mainquist tells me she's opening Baltimore's first and only 100 percent vegan cafe and bakery, Emily's Cafe & Desserts in the Stone Mansion at 4901 Springarden Dr.
If she's wrong and there are others, please correct me below. ...
You may already know the bakery's vegan products, which can be found at Wegman's, Whole Foods, Roots Market, the Health Concern among others.
Anyway, Emily's is having its grand opening this Sunday, Nov. 1, starting with brunch. It sounds like a nice location: The new cafe has a six-foot fireplace and a porch for outdoor service when spring gets here.
The cafe has a fundraiser scheduled on Nov. 24 for Compassion Over Killing. It will feature "classic Thanksgiving food-buffet style and all vegan." Well, not exactly classic Thanksgiving food, of course.
The event is from 6p.m. to 9p.m.
Emily's Cafe is open from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday.
While we've been discussing the Chicago Tribune's 10 worst dining trends, others have, too. Serious Eats had harsher things to say than anyone here did in an entry called "The 10 Worst Food Trends? Really?"
As the note at the end of the post says, the writer, Michael Natkin, really got his knickers in a twist over some of them.
"This list is basically just a bunch of populist rabble-rousing, bashing of supposed elites who have become too effete to enjoy the pleasure of simple, rustic food. The only problem is, these creatures barely exist," Natkin says. ...
There is one terrible trend even he agrees with, though, and that's No. 3, "The Menu as Book."
"There is nothing wrong with 'artisanal' or 'local,' or 'Vermont-raised,'" the Tribune article says in explanation, "and nothing wrong with identifying the source of the goat milk you are being served, but when menu items grow to entire paragraphs, it's a bit much."
The Serious Eats writer says, "I'm in violent agreement here. Personally, within reason I prefer a simpler menu description. Or better yet, none at all. My favorite way to eat out at a good restaurant is to simply let the chef make me whatever they think I will love. "
We've talked about overblown menu descriptions and how annoying they are before, but interestingly I see this as a trend that's dead in the water. Sure, new restaurants around here are proud of being farm-to-table (I'm beginning to really hate that phrase, as you know, but it's useful); but their menus are surprisingly restrained.
R.I.P. to the overblown menu trend, I say.
(Tribune photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo)
Wouldn't it have been serendipitous if the Baltimore edition of "Man v. Food" had happened to air when we had the Day of Gluttony?
Anyway, it's on tonight on the Travel Channel at 10 p.m.
Here's the episode guide I was sent: ...
"Adam's trip starts with a visit to Chaps Charcoal Restaurant to try a carnivorous creation found only in Baltimore: pit beef. Locals say Chaps has the city's best, and Adam describes this dish as 'the carnivore's dream.' Adam samples the pit beef sandwich which includes a healthy serving of bottom round on a kaiser roll, topped with tiger sauce (mayo and horseradish mixed together) and onions. If that isn't meaty enough for you, there's always 'The Raven' (named after Poe, of course). This sandwich includes pit beef, corned beef, and turkey topped with barbecue and tiger sauce.
"Next up Adam gets crabby at Obrycki's Crab House. In Adam's words, 'Here, crab is king.' Some even argue they have the best crab cakes in the country! They do have an interesting method for making crab cakes, which makes this claim plausible. Adam also gets to cook and eat their famous steamed blue crabs.
"Finally, Adam heads to Steak & Main for the 'Great Steak Challenge.' I'm not sure 'great' describes just how massive this challenge is. Adam has one hour to eat five different cuts of beef (74 ounces total) and one pound of sides. Two dozen have attempted this feat, but only four have succeeded. 'Wanna know where the beef is? It's on the battlefield.'"
I'm reading this episode guide and sort of nodding off and suddenly -- Whoa. What the heck is Steak & Main? I'm always surprised when I find out about an established area restaurant I simply hadn't heard of before.
Also, is it just me or is that a really strange quotation at the end?
(Photo: Adam eats the Raven with Chaps owner, Bob Creager. Courtesy of the Travel Channel)
Guest poster John Lindner expresses my potluck anxiety much better than I could. I want people to be impressed by what I bring, I just don't feel like spending time cooking for the peons my neighbors, who would just as soon have a taco casserole. My only quarrel with John's excellent post on a timely topic: He doesn't include a Johnbalaya recipe. EL
Do you go to potluck dinners, picnics, company Christmas food days, gatherings in church basements or other group diney things that require you to bring food for all?
Do you get potluck anxiety? Do you worry whether you should go artful, thoughtful, complicated, or last-minute, processed, obviously-purchased-as-an-afterthought-as-you-raced-down-the-Royal-Farms-snack-aisle? ...
Or are you known for something? (Mrs. Smith will bring her famous Jell-O salad; Mr. Potz, his sinful etouffee; Ms. Sloozell-Von Tweeg, her traditional bread pudding...)
Once upon a time, a bag of Ruffles and a twelve pack would get me into all the parties I wanted to go to.
Then I discovered the joy of cooking. I got fancy. And my stuff always got rave reviews, if not for taste, at least for imagination.
Eventually, I tired of sacrificing two weeks to planning, preparation and cooking up a platter of artwork that would be plopped down next to barbecued cocktail weinies and a mac and cheese casserole. Why was I busting tuchus? The other cooks had the right idea: simplicity and volume.
For a while, buying hummus and pita chips and dumping them in Tupperware and Baggies worked. Friends at least had to guess whether I made it myself. But hummus didn’t remain exotic. When you’re the tenth guest to walk through the door with a bowl of mashed garbanzos, it’s time to fish another part of the lake.
I thought I struck gold years ago when I concocted a home-made pesto pasta dish that worked as well cold as hot. Went over big. A pleasant surprise. It wasn’t reliable enough, though. Too seasonal. Once I ran out of home-made pesto I was lost. And I didn’t like sharing my last couple of batches of summer goodness. So pesto went by the wayside and I was back to potluck anxiety.
Then I discovered Johnbalaya. It’s easy but clearly takes more thought than chips and Helluva Good dip. It’s relatively cheap and people like it. Two Saturday shindigs in a row now, and I think this is my new dish-to-pass standby. Twenty years from now I’ll be known as the guy who always brings that big farty dish with the funny name everyone raves about.
That or they’ll stop inviting me to their parties.
Here's a deal for you. Today and Thursday Woodberry Kitchen is celebrating its second anniversary by offering free wine and beer selections to those who arrive on foot, by bike or by light rail. I'm not sure how they can really tell, but I guess they take you at your word.
You have to buy food, of course.
Update: Thanks to Hon, I got in touch with the PR person who says he made a mistake and it is through Friday. However, the required food purchase is a legal thing.
(Kenneth K. Lam/Sun photographer)
I'm still working my way through the terrible trends, or at least the ones that affect us locally. No. 2 is "The Chef as Media Whore."
Remember, these are "in order of annoyance."
That surprises me. There are a lot more annoying restaurant trends I can think of.
Here's what the story on the decade's bad dining trends said about this one:
They cook, of course. They also sell shoes and star in reality shows. Sometimes they cook. Rocco DiSpirito, a mid-decade pan flash, is arguably the finest example.
"There are celebrity chefs who manage to stay chefs and run excellent restaurants," said [Tim] Zagat, "but there are times when you wonder what a chef is supposed to be doing. TV brings people into their restaurant. But when do they find time to cook?" ...
Baltimoreans wouldn't be flocking to Volt in Frederick if it weren't for Bravo's Top Chef. But owner/chef Bryan Voltaggio still seems pretty committed to his kitchen. (It would be interesting to see if diners who ate there when he was in Las Vegas filming the show noticed any difference in the quality of the food.)
Baltimore has always had its celebrity chefs. But they were simply people like Michael Rourke at Hampton's and Mark Henry at the Milton Inn who got their fame by producing great food.
About the most media they did was appear on a three-minute segment on a local TV show every once in a while. For Baltimore's most successful restaurants, like the Prime Rib or Tio Pepe, how many diners could name the executive chef?
On the whole, this seems to me to be one of those trends that isn't all that bad. Celebrity chefs have upped the interest in sophisticated restaurant food, and that can't be a bad thing.
(AP Photo/Jim Cooper)
While the discussion under 10 Terrible Dining Trends was very interesting, and I think it will cause readers to be a little more careful about joking about dogs and Asian restaurants, it did get us a bit far from the original post and the dining trends. (Other than the foam, of course, which holds endless fascination for everyone because, well, I have to admit that when done badly it does look like dog slobber.)
But I wanted to talk more about Trend No. 7: the Communal Table, which we've discussed before. ...
Did it surprise you that anyone felt strongly enough about communal tables in restaurants to include it in a top 10 of worst dining trends? It did me.
The only communal tables I can think of around here off the top of my head are at the Lebanese Taverna in Harbor East, Tabrizi's in Harborview and the Iron Bridge Wine Company in Columbia. I haven't a clue whether people enjoy eating at them or not; I've never heard anyone express an opinion.
But isn't it sort of like eating at a bar (only without having the bartender to talk to, of course)? You can interact with your neighbors or not, I would imagine. Or do you just not sit at them unless you want social discourse? Or to pick up cute guys or gals?
The reason they are so awful, according to the story, is this:
Said Michael Schwartz, the chef/owner of Michael's Genuine Food & Drink in Miami: the communal table "assumes people who don't know each other want to sit together."
Well, duh.
(Tribune photo by Antonio Perez)
I don't remember any interest in Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations around here before this year, but because the National Honey Board sent me a recipe and good art and I got an e-mail from a reader about the holiday, I decided it's worthy of a post.
How can you not love a recipe that "makes 50 small skulls"?
Day of the Dead has always fascinated me more than Halloween for some reason. (Teenagers coming to my door with no costumes demanding candy has nothing to do with it.) ...
Here's the e-mail I got from Tara:
...I am trying to find molds to make mexican sugar skulls for an at home Dias De Los Muertos celebration. Do you or any of your readers know of somewhere locally I could purchase these molds? I have tried Michaels, but no. Maybe a mexican grocery I wasn't aware of? I was going to order them online but the shipping for this short a time is outrageous (I've never been good at planning ahead). Thanks!
I had no idea, but I suggested Something Else (1611 Sulgrave Ave.) in Mount Washington because I got my Day of the Dead figurines there.
Then I got a second e-mail from Tara saying she had found the molds at Milagro (1005 W. 36th St.) in Hampden.
Anyway, this is the recipe I got from the National Honey Board. Honey, apparently is "a customary ingredient that, according to legend, gives a unique sweetness to the journey from life on earth to life after death."
I couldn't figure out why I was getting a recipe that had only one tablespoon of honey in it, but then I realized most folks will still have to buy a whole jar of honey to make it (and then watch the honey slowly crystallize as they never get around to making anything with the rest.)
Sugar Skulls
Makes 50 small skulls
Ingredients
2 egg whites
1 tablespoons pure honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups granulated sugar
Preparation
Combine egg whites, honey and vanilla extract; mix well. Pour honey mixture over sugar. With your hands, thoroughly combine sugar and honey until you have a consistency similar to wet sand. (Mixture should form a ball when squeezed in your hand.)
Tightly pack the sugar mix into the skull molds and wipe off excess. Invert onto a flat surface and allow to dry for 24 hours.
Decorate skulls using royal icing,* sequins and/or edible paint.
*Royal Icing: 1 egg white for every 3 cups of powdered sugar. Add food coloring of your choice. Mix ingredients until completely blended.
(Photo courtesy of the National Honey Board)
If you knew how many rude e-mails I get every day, you would understand why I sometimes get cranky on this blog.
It's like people who create computer viruses, as the Zen Master pointed out this morning when I told him about Phil's e-mail complaining about my Volt review. Some folks just like adding a minor bit of unhappiness to the world's general pool.
I particularly enjoyed this comment of Phil's: ...
A friend of mine said some time ago that you're a sucker for restaurants with trendy one-syllable names, no matter the quality of the food or service. Have you perhaps lost your perspective---or your good judgment?
If he meant I like restaurants where the owners and chefs are familiar with restaurants and cooking trends in LA and New York (including the trend of naming restaurants with one word), he's right.
If he meant I like restaurants where they are willing to take chances -- and fail sometimes -- to produce imaginative food using good, fresh ingredients, then, yes, I'm a sucker for that.
Do I allow them some leeway for what they're attempting to do, and am I sorry when we lose them (like Ixia, Bicycle and Dogwood) and think Baltimore is a poorer place for their loss? Then yes.
Do I like the trend of one-word restaurant names?
As I said in a post more than a year ago, "This oh-so-cutting-edge trend of interesting-sounding but only vaguely relevant one-word names for new restaurants could get old fast."
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
This week's Top 10 is in honor of Halloween.
For those of us who enjoy eating out more than we should, there is a special punishment reserved for us in hell. We will be forced to go out to eat over and over again for eternity at restaurants that have 10 things in common.
Thanks to the readers who contributed ideas for this list of the Top 10 Things You'll Find in the Restaurants in Hell. I stole from them shamelessly: ...
1) No matter what you order, the kitchen just ran out of it.
2) All of the tables are next to the swinging kitchen door or a service station and face the men's room. An air conditioning vent blowing ice-cold air is situated just above your neck.
3) The large group of tipsy ladies at the table next to you gets louder and louder as the evening wears on; and speaking of wearing, they are all drowning in Obsession.
4) The little girl at the table on the other side screams at random moments throughout the whole meal. Her baby brother in the high chair throws food at you.
5) The server takes 20 minutes to recite all the specials and all their ingredients and preparation, and at the end you can never remember what even one of them was so he has to start all over again.
6) If you order your steak rare, it will come well done. If you like your steak well done, it will be bloody. As the waiter puts it in front of you he says pleasantly, "I've seen cows hurt worse than that get up and walk away."
7) Your dinner always has to be sent back, and you sit there while everyone else at the table is finishing his or hers. Then they sit there and watch you eat. You know you are gobbling, but you can't help yourself.
8) The restaurant is out of alcohol. When the sommelier finally finds a bottle of wine, it's corked.
9) The bread is delicious but needs butter, and the butter is just slightly rancid.
10) None of the desserts contain chocolate. Or if you don't care about chocolate, they are all variations on the death-by-chocolate cake.
Tomorrow will be the last day for Burritos en Fuego, an inexpensive and popular Mexican place in Fells Point.
I talked to manager Joti Rodar just now, and she told me it was a "landlord situation."
I asked if she would be doing anything special tomorrow to mark the closing, and she said, "I wish I had the energy. I just want to stay open the last day with a little class and dignity."
(Patrick Smith/Sun photographer)
Every once in awhile I get a restaurant question that stumps me. This e-mail arrived today from Sarann:
I hope you can help. We were told of a steak house in Baltimore that serves aged beef. The steaks are shown with the mold on them and you can pick your own. Do you know of a place like this? I would be grateful for any information. ...
As a matter of fact, I don't. There are certainly steak houses that serve aged beef, but beyond that...
Given how squeamish some people are around here, I can't see this being a successful concept in the Baltimore area, but maybe I'm wrong.
The last restaurant where I was shown the raw beef (as well as raw potatoes and heads of broccoli) was Morton's the Steakhouse. But there wasn't any mold.
The only place I can even imagine its being done was McCafferty's in Mt. Washington, now gone. It aged its beef at the restaurant, as I remember.
Maybe she's thinking of a restaurant that isn't primarily a steak house.
I thought I would get more reaction from readers about my review of Volt, which appeared online Friday and in the paper yesterday, but so far I've only heard from one reader.
He reiterated a complaint that I've heard from several others -- that the portions were so small when he ate there that he didn't feel it was worth the price.
I didn't feel that particularly, but then I wasn't paying for my meal, and I ordered all four courses, which you're encouraged to do. ...
Or maybe portions are bigger these days because people have complained. The reader also said that the kitchen wouldn't have been able to divide his appetizer it was so small.
Anyway, if you've eaten at Volt, this is your chance to tell us about your experience.
(At Volt, Executive Sous Chef Graeme Ritchie shucks Taylor Bay scallops from Fairhaven, Maine for dinner. Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
I was catching up on my TV recordings last night and came upon a familiar face.
I was watching CBS's new show "The Good Wife." Who should pop up on the screen but Graham Phillips, Amanda's brother. He was the cameraman and editor of her first video for Dining@Large, the one for Sugar Week on how to make a black bottom pie. Graham's resume has grown since we saw him here last: He plays Julianna Margulies' son, Zach, on the show.
Somehow I feel the blog should get credit, a sort of we knew him when, but I'm not sure why.
John P. has been distracting me with food and restaurant jokes.
In fact, he's almost convinced me to do a Top 10 of them.
Example:
Did you hear about the explosion at the bakery?
All the napoleons were blown apart!!
OK, that was pretty good, but I defy you to come up with any more (other than the primitive knock-knock jokes like "Orange you supposed to answer the door?").
Or rather, I defied him, and he did:
A group of termites walk into a bar and yell, "Hey where's the bar tender?" ...
"Kiss me," she cooed.
"I'm hungry," he whispered.
"Quiche me first."
I know it's Monday morning, but don't you feel better now?
(Elizabeth Malby/Sun photographer)
Next Sunday I review the Reserve, the new bar in Federal Hill -- OK, OK, south Baltimore -- that has started serving ambitious food.
It's always surprising to me to find a bar/restaurant that isn't perfectly happy serving wings and a burger. It seems to me those are sure-fire paths to monetary success. But, of course, I'm happy when they attempt a little something more.
(Photo of 1855 Angus filet mignon, roasted tri-color fingerling potatoes, wild mushroom ragout and a roasted garlic demi-glace. Kim Hairston/Sun photographer)
The discussion on how best to dress up as Gluttony reminded me of the best food-related Halloween costume I ever saw. Costumes, really. I wish I had a picture.
I was sitting at my desk at work one Halloween and suddenly a group from another department appeared dressed in full costume as the California raisins. They had Martha and the Vandellas blasting out "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" on a portable cassette player, and they danced their way through the features department and then disappeared.
Top that.
Do you know about the Stoop, the unusual storytelling series held at Centerstage?
Seven people have seven minutes each to tell their stories around a certain theme.
Next Monday, Nov. 2, the theme is "Kitchen Confidential: Stories about cooking, eating, and assorted food issues." The stories will be about everything from "Big Night"-style extravagances to waiting tables. ...
For this Stoop, the storytellers are Erica Chung, school psychologist; Gregory Hartzler-Miller, "lifestyle experimenter"; John Shields, owner/chef of Gertrude's at the BMA; Mary Rose Madden, public radio producer; Tony Geraci, director of food and nutrition for Baltimore City Public Schools; De'Von Brown, student, musician, and one of the "Boys of Baraka"; and Chrissy Ferrera, artist and "Starbucks diarist."
Tickets are $20 for general admission seating, and you can buy them on the Stoop Web site or by calling 410-332-0033.
The event starts at 7 p.m. with cocktails and music from Boister. The show itself starts at 8 p.m.
I've never been to a Stoop performance, although I've heard good things about them. Are they great? Very uneven? Worth the 20 bucks?
I have to give a shout out to Dante for this fine image, which appeared under the Gino Troia post, as well. EL
In the eternal hereafter, we have levels of Hell for the Italian cooks who “suck” as well as those arrogant enough to point this out to them.
The cooks who “suck” spend their days on a level full of crowded, brightly light converted row house eateries, drinking Chianti out of small juice glasses and feeding each other antipasto and brioche discussing the latest bocce tournament results. All they have to watch are re-runs of “The Galloping Gourmet with Graham Kerr” and “The Frugal Gourmet” with Jeff Smith. All they have to listen to are badly mastered Al Martino albums.
The arrogant sits on a level in semi-darkness and silence, although he can hear the “suckers,” distantly. He has nothing to watch except his own linguini slowly drying out. He dines alone.
Posted by: Dante Alighieri | October 20, 2009 9:46 PM
As much as I enjoy talking about dining trends, talking about bad dining trends is even more fun.
I was poking around our Food & Dining page today, and I came upon a Chicago Tribune photo gallery story on the 10 worst dining trends of this decade. (Actually, the headline says "of the last decade," but that must be a mistake.)
I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did if you've taken part in some of the lively discussions about them on this blog. One worrisome thing: There seem to be only nine on our Web site. ...
However, your restaurant critic, working tirelessly on your behalf, found the tenth: fried onion blossoms.
I don't know. I can think of a lot worse things than that. Frisee used indiscriminately leaps to mind.
Anyway, I would list the bad trends for you here, but the reasons behind their selection are what's entertaining. And, not unexpectedly, they often come down to restaurant preciousness.
Feel free to defend or attack any of these trends; that's what makes this blog amusing.
(Tribune photo by Alex Garcia / March 30, 2006)
A neighbor gave me some corn she had gotten at the Saturday farmers market last week, and it was great. I didn't realize there was still corn to be had, let alone that it would be edible -- better than just edible.
So bright and early this morning (although it wasn't bright), I was over at Waverly. The corn guy tells me this is the last of it. ...
It's white corn, a hybrid called Christina.
It looks kind of awful on the outside because, he says, the frost got it, but he promises it still tastes really good.
You can see from the photo that there's not his usual truckful of corn, and cabbages having taken its place on the table. But if you're reading this after the Waverly market closes, I bet he will be downtown under the viaduct tomorrow. He usually is.
As bill pointed out, today's blog entries featured gluttony. Which brings me to Gailor's Halloween costume dilemma.
She's thinking of going as the Seven Deadly Sins.
No, not all of them. She would be Envy; she has something nice in green to wear. She's hoping to find six friends to go in with her on the costume.
When Gailor first told me her idea, we tried to name the sins without looking them up, and I was surprised how badly I did. I think I got four of them.
They are, in case you don't know and don't want to bother to Google, Envy, Pride, Sloth, Lust, Wrath, Greed and Gluttony. ...But Gluttony...someone who's willing to go as Gluttony is going to be hard to find. And I'm not sure what the costume would be.
(Photo by jlburgess courtesy of stock.xchng)
The owner of the place where I take my car told me about it. I got an e-mail from a reader. My husband overheard someone from Pakistan praising the food. All in the same week.
So last night I stopped by King's Grilled Kabob in Hampden to pick up dinner. This isn't going to be a review of what we ate. Instead I want to tell you about two other customers I watched while I waited for my food. ...
It was just 6 p.m., and these two ladies were still eating from the lunch buffet, supposedly available for $6.99 between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.
They had a stack of empty plates on their table and went back to the buffet while I was sitting there for at least their third go-round. There were the remnants of kebabs on the buffet, and various dishes in sauces, felafel, hummus and so on.
One of them actually went back to the kitchen to complain because the food was running out.They had clearly already gorged themselves.
Good lord, ladies. It's a little late for lunch, isn't it? You're going to put this nice little Middle Eastern restaurant out of business.
Editor Mark just posted some gorgeous photos from Volt in Frederick, which I'm reviewing this week, in the Sun's photo gallery.
Algerina Perna, one of our best food photographers, took them.
Here's part two of guest poster Robert of Cross Key's eating adventures on his recent road trip. His photo and descriptions are making me hungry. EL
Detroit is not a food desert.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, the demise of Detroit has been greatly exaggerated.
Don’t get me wrong, I saw a lot of hurt in the city. There are many vacant and boarded-up homes. There are a lot barren fields that seem out of place in an urban environment. There are numerous abandoned factories.
I went into Detroit, however, expecting to see much worse. I wasn’t expecting to see crowded museums, or rush hour traffic in a city with such high unemployment, or restaurants of all types filled with diners. Nevertheless, that's what I saw. ...
It was probably the filled restaurants that surprised me the most. A lot has been written about how Detroit is a food desert, insofar as the city has no grocery stores. I figured a city that couldn’t support grocery stores probably couldn’t support its restaurants. But I visited restaurants throughout the city, the suburbs and the countryside. Every place I went had decent crowds.
My first dinner in Detroit was at Pegasus in their Greektown. I ordered the old chestnuts of saganaki, calamari, pastichio, moussaka, and spanakopita. It wasn’t different from what I normally get at Ikaros or Acropolis in our Greektown. In fact, I would say the fare at Ikaros is probably better. The exception would be the spanakopita at Pegasus, which was very good. It was a nice contrast of flaky and creamy, and I really liked the nutmeg flavor in it.
The food at Pegasus is good, but what really makes this place is the atmosphere. It's open until 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., which makes it like our Sabatino’s, but with much more energy.
It adjoins a casino, but unlike most casinos that isolate themselves from the surrounding area, the Greektown Casino seems to integrate itself with not just Pegasus but all of the Greektown restaurants.
Finally, I love how Greek food is just a part of the Detroit culture. I was there about 11 p.m. The place was filled with people who were at the Red Wings game, and every table was ordering saganaki. It was a constant chorus of Opa! and a spectacle of flaming cheese. You wouldn’t see that in Baltimore after a Ravens game.
I went to Dearborn to visit the Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village and to have lunch at Al-Ameer, a Middle Eastern restaurant. These activities wouldn’t seem to have much common, but they are probably the best representation of Dearborn. This city on the outskirts of Detroit is home to both the world headquarters of Ford and the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the country.
As you drive through Dearborn, you go from a sprawling, corporate campus of Ford to a downtown where all the signs are in Arabic. The latter is quite a sight, and I would be disingenuous if I didn’t say it was a little intimidating (although I’m sure there are some who would be intimidated by a corporate complex). I don't think these feelings can be chalked up to simple xenophobia. It's not the same as being in a Chinatown and seeing signs in Mandarin.
Now, I’ll acknowledge my cultural apprehensions, but I’m not going to let it get between me and a meal. At Al-Ameer I had the house platter, which has two grape leaves, two fried kebbie, chicken shawarma, tawook, kabob, kafta, shawarma, falafel, served with hummus and salad. All of it was good, although you have to really like garlic in order to enjoy the food. The two best things were the falafel, which was the first falafel I ever had that was not dried out, and the shawarma that was flavorful, succulent strips of marinated, fatty lamb.
When I was enjoying my Middle Eastern feast, I was not alone. Al-Ameer’s, like Pegasus, had filled tables. The same was true for my fine-dining meal of short ribs and opera cake at the Whitney and my Belgian beer and bowl of mussels supper at the Cadieux Café.
Every place I went had a decent crowd, and it was really good to see that.
Editor Amanda and I were discussing Top 10 lists yesterday and the balance between ones that generate a lot of interest but have been overdone (crab cakes) and ones that have limited appeal (best places to get foie gras).
So she suggested "the heart attack on a plate."
This seems to me to fall into a third category. I'm just not sure what that category is. It has elements of horror -- the heart attack part -- but at the same time, there's a fascination. You just feel that whatever the food is, it might taste really good. ...
To make it interesting, I think these should be dishes you can get in restaurants.
Editor Amanda suggested the obvious one: the beer-battered burger stuffed with cheddar and deep fried at Mother's Federal Hill Grille, which is actually called the Heart Attack on a Plate.
OK, I actually don't think that would taste good, but it might be a matter of my brain getting in the way of my tastebuds. Other people love it.
I would go with the 48-ounce porterhouse at Shula's. It seems, I don't know, more refined somehow.
I don't think we'll be able to come up with eight more quite so ostentatious examples. But there must be other incredibly rich entrees, side dishes (the ultimate mac and cheese, perhaps?) and desserts worthy of inclusion.
(Photo by Mike Buscher/ Special to the Baltimore Sun. When I put in the key words "heart attack on a plate" to find this photo in our archives, it also brought up a photo of a Major League baseball umpire who died.)
I'm having trouble getting anything else done today I'm so busy linking to breaking news in the paper. Snyder's is buying Utz.
I guess those of us who read this story are divided into two groups: Those who love Snyder's pretzels are saying, "Thank goodness it isn't the other way round" and those who love Utz saying, "Hope they don't ruin the potato chips."
I had to laugh when I saw that my colleague Suzanne Loudermilk of Baltimore magazine's food blog, In Good Taste, has just been to Volt in Frederick, the restaurant I'll be reviewing this week. I'm sure we were there the same night, and just didn't happen to run into each other. We usually are.
Suzanne is back after a month of medical leave, scooping me as usual.
There are so many restaurant- or blog-related things I want to link to in today's paper I hardly know where to begin.
I'll start with the story by Peter Hermann about a meeting called by the owner of Cafe Gia in Little Italy. I know some residents of the neighborhood are upset about the goings on at and outside Mo's because they've written me about their concerns. It sounds like Gia Blatterman is, too. ...
Then click here to go to Susan Reimer's blog post on the Great Canned Pumpkin Shortage, which also has info on what's in those cans of pumpkin. If you're concerned about more than just pies, you might want to read her story on the pumpkin shortage.
Other Reviewer Richard reviewed Coal Fire Pizza in Ellicott City today, and as often, his review contained a line that made me laugh out loud. He tell us about "...the Coal Fire signature sauce, which is described as a 'perfect blend of two distinct tastes: sweetness & spice.' And I just hated it."
On the whole, though, he seemed to like the place a lot. And that pizza is looking pretty good right now.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
To make gottaseeit happy, I took a photo of the first page of the first letter by Anonymous with my handy dandy phone camera:
I should never complain about having to do Top 10 lists, because they have almost single-handedly made Dining@Large the viewing success it is today.
But as far reaching as some of the subjects have been (bacon spinoffs: still waiting in the wings), I have never stooped so low, or maybe reached so high, as the Top 10 list that appeared on the Dallas Observer food blog:
Top 10 Foods to Fry for Next Year's State Fair
Brilliant. ...
Let me suggest you not click on the link if you haven't had breakfast yet.
We've talked about fried Oreos in an earlier post, and deep-fried butter. But they don't come close to some of reporter Dave Faries' ideas.
Why did he make the list? "Because even with garlic sauce on one side and grape topping on the other, this fried butter love affair can only last so long."
Also, I really like it that one of the tags for the entry is "Really Dumb Ideas," along with "Fried Foods" and "State Fair." If you click on the tag, there are only two entries in that category on the whole blog. Heck, I have that many really dumb ideas in a day on my blog.
Thanks to Rusty for finding this list for me.
(Food judge Gary Huddleston takes a bite of Deep Fried Butter during judging for the best new food at the Big Tex Choice Awards at the 2009 State Fair of Texas in Dallas, Monday, Sept. 7, 2009. The dish earned the most creative award in the contest. AP Photo/Donna McWilliam)
Today's Table Talk column tells you a little more about subjects I've already talked about here: specifically Azul 17 and Taverna Corvino. There's also a Closing of the Week. I actually could do a feature called that if I wanted to these days.
I just talked to Susan Reimer about her canned pumpkin story tomorrow, and I have to remember to link to it. It will answer both the shortage question and the "Is canned pumpkin pumpkin?" question. ...
This week's print edition of Top 10 and comments were on foods for flu victims. As I was looking for it on the Web site, I got sidetracked by an anonymous, handwritten letter that reminded me why I sometimes wish my Top 10s (or anything) wouldn't appear in the print edition. I'm not sure what it was that set the writer off.
I can't duplicate the underlinings, random capitalizations, misspellings and pure rage the letter conveys on its yellow lined paper. Here's the best I can do:
Read Carefully
Your column Taste 9/30/2009
Annabelle Lee Is Not in Canton, It Is In Highlandtown
The Corner of Clinton St and Fleet St. Highlandtown
That Is Highlandtown And Always Will Be Highlandtown
There Is No East Canton West Canton or North Canton
Canton Begins At Hudson St Several blocks Below Fleet St.
Canton Was A Fine Mixed Ethnic Area Before Invasion By Hippie And Yuppie And Rich Kids. hard Working People Lived in And Built Canton. No Crime, Church Going People, Family, Jobs,
That Is Canton Was Canton Not Today.
Annabele Lee Not In Canton Correct Your Statement
OK, then.
Er...what statement would that be?
That letter was in the envelope labeled No. 1. An envelope labeled No. 2 was close behind. The letter in it was dated the next day, after Anonymous had had a restless night stewing over my ignorance:
Addendum
Annabelle Lee Is Just Up the Street From Where Haussners World Famous Restaurant which was in Highlandtown Not Canton
Around the Corner And Down the Street Was Winterling Foster & [Something]
Highlandtown Not Canton
Down the Street Was & Is [Something] Fagley & Fleet
Highlandtown Not Canton
If You Can Go Back Far Enough Muellers Rest World Famous Charcoal Steak, Corner of Eastern Ave And [something] Ave Across From Patterson Movie Across the Street Was The Avenue Restaurant
Also Across the Street Since 1943 The Best Pizza And Fine Italian Home Cooked Food Matthews
All in Highlandtown Not Canton
You Certainly Do Not Know Locations in This City.
I still don't get why Anonymous is mad at me just because all you hippies, yuppies and rich kids took over Canton.
(Photo of Azul 17, not in Canton, by Amy Davis/Sun photographer)
What is a photo of Red Star in Fells Point doing next to a post about a new Mexican cantina behind Little Italy?
To my surprise, when I called Diablita, the new restaurant in the space where Tsunami was next to Lemongrass, I found out that the Red Star owner had taken over both the Tsunami space and Lemongrass from its Annapolis owners. ...
I had simply assumed the original owners had decided to change concepts when Tsunami's pan Asian offerings didn't go over as well in Baltimore as they did in Annapolis.
But, no. Not only will we be seeing a new restaurant where Tsunami was, but once Diablita, which opened last Thursday, gets established, the Lemongrass kitchen will be redone, the restaurant will be renamed, and it will get a new menu, probably Thai/pan Asian.
The executive chef I talked to is Russell Braitsch, who has worked in the kitchens of Gardel's, now closed; Salt; Corks; and Red Star.
I'll be writing in more depth about Diablita in next week's Table Talk column.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Sometimes our Shallow Thought guru John Lindner is so wise I think we're going to have to start calling his guests posts Deep Thought Wednesday. Here's John. EL
On occasion, cherished friends have accused me of casting “foodies” as snobs. As a snob, I find their asperity amusing and ironic: Who is this judge who judges me judgmental?
What rankles me is the underlying implication that snobbery is, prima facie, a bad thing. OK, maybe it is. But it’s also unavoidable. And fun. ...
Snobbery is like a ride in a brightly colored balloon that floats above drab egalitarian uniformity. It is impossible not to look down on others from such a vantage point. But, of course, the ride comes with a price.
Easy example: snobbery is de rigueur in wine. It must be so. Why? Because while per unit prices go up, quantity of said unit remains static: For my 10 bucks and your 100, we each get a 750 ml bottle of wine. The difference in cost must be made up by the difference in perceived benefit.
For $10, I’m comfortable judging my bottle “good.” For $100, I need a dictionary, thesaurus, three languages and a graduate degree in earth sciences to rationalize my expense. I can’t just say, “I like it.” I have to apply myself wholeheartedly to qualification. I have to show my work. And believe me, for $100, I want to show my work … to everyone.
On my budget, snobbery comes cheap. Frankly, I don’t see how anyone can spend $20 for a bottle of fermented grape juice and not find notes of aspic, white chocolate, and braised squirrel … or whatever.
At $30, I smirk, tentatively raise an eyebrow, and whisper, “Is that Oncidium orchid pollen I’m getting at the finish?”
At a hundred a bottle, I see portraits of Joan of Arc in the tearing.
On the other hand, is a hint of toasted cardamon worth $100? No. But that’s hardly the point. What the $100 buys you is the right to find any damn thing you want in that bottle and, more importantly, to look askance at oafs who can’t.
No spice like hunger? Try adding a dash of snobbery. Anything less – as anyone with a decent palate knows – is plonk.
(Photo by Luca Cinacchio, courtesy Stock Xchng)
I've probably written about how I select restaurants to review before, but it's worth explaining again. Here's the e-mail that prompted my thinking about this now:
Hi Elizabeth, ... How do you select which restaurants to review on a weekly basis?
Thanks,
Shelly
New restaurants are always my priority. After that, restaurants that have undergone major changes -- my recent re-review of Alizee in the Inn in the Colonnade, for example. ...
Other things being equal, I try to vary cuisines, geographical location (is that redundant? -- you know what I mean), and cost. It's not just to give my readers different places to read about. I need the variety to write about the restaurants with any enthusiasm. After you've described a crab cake for the 10,000th time...
One of the indications of how much more interesting a restaurant town Baltimore has become is how rarely I have a chance to return to a restaurant that hasn't made significant changes. Even important places don't get a return visit more than every five or six years.
But surely the opening of new restaurants is going to slow down with the recession, and I'll go back to revisiting old favorites more often. It hasn't happened yet, though.
Maybe we should start a list of restaurants you wish I would go back to.
(Lloyd Fox/Sun photographer)
The canned pumpkin shortage of 2009 completely passed me by until someone mentioned today she had had trouble finding any in local supermarkets.
Otherwise I wouldn't have noticed until the day before Thanksgiving, when I would decide at the last moment that, yes, I would make my chiffon pumpkin pie again this year even though there would only be the three of us. ...
Probably there's been a story in the Sun, and I just missed it.
I did see a feature on the local news about bad weather affected the pumpkin crop; and I said to myself, big deal. So I won't have a jack o' lantern this year. I never thought it might mean NO PIE.
(Sun archives)
I don't know if you noticed a new addition to the Web site's picture gallery, my Top 10 Favorite Posts.
When the Web editors asked me to do it, I had a lot of trouble. It turned out that, in spite of all the wonderful food photographs I've used, my favorite posts didn't involve any of them. Awkward.
I also found it was hard to pick my favorites because they are all my children. (OK, not the openings and closings and straightforward news posts, but the quirkier ones.)
I can't imagine what someone coming upon the photo gallery without having read Dining@Large regularly would think of my selection if he or she was expecting posts from a restaurant blog. ...
For instance, why would anyone have a clue as to why my Christmas Day post was entitled "Now THIS is a fridge" if they hadn't seen all the photos of my daughter's empty fridge?
I also had trouble choosing because my favorites were often one in a series: the series of posts about Gailor's fridge, for instance, or Sugar Week, or the cross-country road trip, or our trip to Italy.
Oh, well. I did my best. And I'd be interested in what regular readers think -- if you would have substituted some other post or posts.
(Monica Lopossay/Sun photographer)
It's only a slight exaggeration when I say I've done 150 or so Top 10 lists. I'm running out of ideas. I don't want to make the subject too obscure (bacon spinoffs, anyone?), but I don't want to revisit a topic that doesn't need revisiting.
However, one list that definitely needs updating is seafood restaurants. It was one of the first, if not the first, Top 10 I did almost three years ago. Pisces is gone now, as is Blue Sea Grill.
Don't be offended if your favorite crab house isn't on this list. Crab Houses Updated is a topic for another day. But I was surprised at how once you eliminate crab houses, the list isn't that easy to compile.
Here's my Top 10 in alphabetical order: ...
* Black Olive in Fells Point. Fresh fish (you pick your own) with a Greek accent.
* Bluestone in Timonium. Not what you'd call a sedate place, but the seafood is fine.
* Catonsville Gourmet in Catonsville. Chesapeake Bay seafood and BYOB, too. What more do you need?
* Hell Point Seafood in Annapolis. DC restaurateur Robert Kinkead brings his brand of seafood to Annapolis, including lobster rolls. I know it must have a Web site, but I can't find it.
* Kali's Court in Fells Point. A charming setting for fine dining. The whole fish is a must.
* Mama's on the Half Shell in Canton. Out-of-town visitors will love this place, more casual than some on this list.
* Oceanaire Seafood Room in Harbor East. Pricey, luxurious, excellent seafood -- and the parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
* O'Learys in Eastport. Considered by many to be the best seafood restaurant in the Annapolis area.
* Real Seafood Co. in Annapolis. Pray that the lobster special is still going on.
* Watertable in the Inner Harbor. Great view of the harbor from every table.
(Monica Lopossay/Sun photographer)
I called the woman who had the fabulous new restaurant tip around noon, and she sounded like a) I had woken her up and b) she didn't have a clue why I would be calling her. But after I jogged her memory she told me the restaurant was Gutman's in Canton Arts and Entertainment. I asked her for a phone number. (I already knew it doesn't have a Web site yet.) She said it was in her phone and she would have to call me back.
She hasn't yet. I'm going home.
If you missed Fred Rasmussen's excellent obituary of Richard Pirone over the weekend, please take a look. The Country Fare Inn, Pirone's first restaurant, opened the year I started as restaurant critic for the Sun. Roland Jeannier was the chef.
The restaurant consortium, the Country Fare Group, at one point or other included the Brass Elephant, Milton Inn, City Lights, Fiori, Kings Contrivance, Remomo Cafe Italia, Pete's Pizza and Enrico's in Washington. He and his partners were hugely important in the development of Baltimore's restaurant scene.
I was impressed, as you can tell from my review, at how much the owner of Umi Sake is a presence in her dining room. That used to be a norm for local restaurants, but it's not so true anymore.
Of course, if the owner is also the chef, you hope he or she will stay in the kitchen -- at least until you get your food -- but otherwise it's nice when he or she is out in the dining room making sure things are running smoothly. ...
I would create a Top 10 of local restaurants whose owners are usually visible, but I'm not sure I could come up with 10.
By the way, did you notice for the first time the review appeared on the Web site as soon as I had turned it in and it was edited -- Friday.
When I checked my voice mail after I got in (after my flu shot, good girl, Elizabeth), I found that the former food editor had gotten a message she forwarded to me.
The person who called said, paraphrasing here, "I don't know if the Sun has a food critic or not, but if you do, I'd like to invite them to a fabulous new restaurant in Canton. They should call me." ...
I've heard people say they can eat anything and not gain weight, or say the reason they are overweight is their metabolism. But I never really believed it. I figured if you ate moderately and exercised, you would stay close to your proper weight.
So I find this story about a professional competitive eater from Germantown, Md. astounding. Juliet Lee is a little over 5 feet tall, weighs a little over 100 pounds, wears jeans in size 0 and, well, here's a list of the foods she's eaten in competition: ...
"34 hot dogs, 48 tamales, 22 pork barbecue sandwiches and nearly five dozen miniature hamburgers. All within minutes."
It may not be just a matter of a superfast metabolism because Lee eats all her meals as one big meal at the end of the day normally. But that doesn't explain why she can eat some of the things she has (11 slices of pizza in 10 minutes, for instance) or even why she would want to.
Strange.
(AP Photo/The Washington Post, Ricky Carioti)
If you haven't checked out the current issue of Style magazine, you should. It's the food issue, with some very interesting stuff in it. Thanks to Dahlink for pointing out the story about the Troias, who have been one of Baltimore's important food families for many years.
I'm so used to people tiptoeing around the subject of Little Italy that I was quite startled at this comment from the patriarch of the family, Gino Troia: ...
"In speaking about Little Italy, (or, for that matter, about most of the Italian restaurants in Maryland) Gino can barely contain his disgust.
“'If I can express my true opinion, I have to say without reservation that most Italian restaurants in Maryland suck. I think you did not expect me to say this, but you get tired of being surrounded by culinary mediocrity.'”
Wow. Tell us what you really think.
(2005 photo of Gino Troia, left, at Bruschetta by Lloyd Fox/Sun photographer)
I was given an assortment of Italian cookies from Bella Biscotti, and I just finished eating them. (Hey, it's a rainy, dreary Sunday morning. The best time to eat cookies.) They were good, but we have fine Italian bakeries in Baltimore, so I'm not thinking most of you will be driving up to Hanover for them or ordering them over the internet.
Except for the amaretti. These were spectacular: chewy on the inside, crisp outside and deliciously almond flavored. Well worth whatever you have to do to get them.
Of course, I didn't try the chocolate butterscotch biscotti or the chocolate chip biscotti or the cranberry or the coconut and pineapple...
(Photo of amaretti courtesy of Bella Biscotti)
As some of you may have guessed from my bacon soap post, next Sunday I'll be reviewing Volt in Frederick. This is the restaurant suddenly made famous because owner/chef Bryan Voltaggio is a contestant on Bravo's Top Chef this season.
We had trouble getting a table, and we went during the week. Most Baltimoreans who want to try Voltaggio's elaborate and pricey New American cuisine will probably want to make the long drive to Frederick on a weekend. You'd better call weeks in advance for a reservation. ...
I wanted to get to Volt earlier, but then I heard rumors that the man running the kitchen would be a contestant on Top Chef. I didn't want to take a chance he would be out of town filming, so I waited until the reality show's season started.
I don't watch Top Chef, but I'm guessing Voltaggio is pretty impressive on it. It didn't seem to me that other area restaurants were helped that much when their chefs were contestants.
I don't mean to suggest that it's only the TV show that has made Volt a success. But I do think it's the reason so many Baltimoreans are discovering it right now.
(Photo of Volt's lounge by Andre F. Chung)
Sometimes the Comment of the Week is something I wish we could discuss some more. I'm actually taking just half a comment for this Saturday's CofW:
...It comes down to this, front of the house and back of the house will never get along.
Posted by: Richard Bachman | October 14, 2009 10:10 PM ...
I can't tell you how often I hear of a chef leaving because he or she is an artist who wants to produce great food and the owner is a business person who wants his business to stay afloat. (I'm usually told this off the record, of course.) I understand how frustrating it must be for both sides.
It would be interesting to know of any chefs who have stayed a long time at a Baltimore restaurant even though they don't have any ownership in the place. So few chefs are also good business people, and why should they be? -- it's not their area of expertise -- but I can see why they would be tempted to open their own places anyway.
As promised, here's the skinny on bacon soap. Now you know I love bacon as much as anyone, but this bacon thing has gone too far.
I know I'm in the minority here, but I had a wonderful brioche at Volt in Frederick recently, except that it was bacon-flavored. The bacon wasn't an improvement because a great brioche can't be improved on.
However, if the rain doesn't stop I'm going to be forced to do a Top 10 this Tuesday of bacon spinoffs.
Thanks to Dave W. for the bacon soap link.
(Photo courtesy of Perpetual Kid)
Over breakfast I was watching an absolutely fascinating program about the H1N1 swine flu on C-Span. It's still going on. (Andrew Pekosz, an associate professor at the Hopkins School of Public Health is the guest.)
I finally had to stop watching to get on with my day -- thank goodness for TiVo -- but one thing really struck me. He said H1N1 doesn't develop naturally in pigs. They get it from humans. Isn't that sad?
Now you can go back to eating pork. Actually I wonder if pork consumption is down. I haven't read anything about it lately. ...
Another thing: Every time he mentioned the virus, he called it the 2009 H1N1; and he said it's here to stay.
Monday morning sharp I'm going to find a place to get my flu vaccine. The seasonal flu, of course.
All this talk of swine flu makes me think of bacon, and from that a post I've been meaning to do on bacon soap. Check back later.
When I was in Evanston, Il. recently I saw a taste test of Via, the new Starbucks instant coffee, going on at all the Starbucks outlets. (It was test-marketed in Chicago, Seattle and London first.)
I was mildly curious, but not enough to try it, even though it's supposed to "transform the coffee industry." I remember when most folks drank Tasters Choice or some other instant coffee during the day unless they were real coffee aficionados, and I'm not particularly anxious to go back to those days. ...
It simply amazes me that Starbucks would be the one to come out with an instant coffee.
Now that the company has gotten just about everyone on board with thinking that you can't buy a good cup of coffee for less than $3, why undercut that? Surely people will stop going to Starbucks before work if they can make a great instant cup of coffee at home. Via is expensive at about $1 a cup, but not as expensive as a cup of brewed coffee at a Starbucks outlet.
I would love to know whether Via tastes as good as its name is a marketing gimmick. I totally missed it if the taste test went on around here, but maybe I should do a poll to see what coffee drinkers who have tried it think.
(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
No, I don't know where. I'm hoping someone can tell me. I got this e-mail from Gail:
I have heard about these tremendous crabs from Mexico, so large that one will be enough to fill you up. Do you know where I can get them? My Dad’s 87th birthday is this month and it would be a great gift for him....
They sound kind of scary, like one might eat you before you eat it. What happened to smaller food is more succulent and better?
And yet I'm intrigued. Further prodding got her to reveal that she's heard they're going for $85 a half dozen.
And to think I once worried that Robert of Cross Keys' guest posts wouldn't have enough food in them. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, wait till you get to the third paragraph. I'm expecting next week's guest post to be on the South Beach Diet. Plus, it has high drama. Here's RoCK with an excellent Free Market Friday. EL
Ohio Amish, Hungarian-Canadians, and Jamie Farr
This past week I went on a vacation to Detroit. Yes, Detroit. Now I’ll get into what I actually did in the Motor City next week. For now, I’ll touch on some of the places I found on my way out there. ...
My desire to avoid toll roads, notably the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes, gave me a chance to see parts of US 40 and 250 that I’ve never seen before. I came to two realizations. First, it is very scenic. Second, there are no doubts that stimulus dollars have found their way to the political battleground states. My entire route was one long repaving and guard rail replacement project.
In Mount Eaton, Oh., I found a great little place called the Hilltop Market. It was part grocery store and part Amish bus station. Since I already had a car, I was in no need of a one-way ticket to Gary, Ind.or Canton, Oh. Instead I availed myself of the wares of the grocery store.
I loaded up on various Amish meats and cheeses, including jerky, sausage sticks and a rather large block of Baby Swiss. I was about to check out when I saw a sign for homemade ice cream. I knew I shouldn’t, but when would I be in Mount Eaton again? Anyway, for a cold day there were quite a few of the plain folk enjoying a cone outside the door, so I figured it must be good.
Oh, it was good. Quite good. The wife and I split a double scoop of Carmel Apple and Buckeye, which is chocolate with peanut butter candies. I was very impressed. It had a great rich and creamy texture, good flavor composition, and was packed with apples and candies. It was at a premium ice cream level except for the price. For what would be about a pint of ice cream, I think I paid $1.50.
A few hours later I was in Toledo, Oh. at Tony Packo’s, a Hungarian hot dog restaurant known for being frequently mentioned by Corporal Klinger on M*A*S*H.
Tony Packo’s is a genuinely fun place. I mean, how can you not enjoy a place that pays homage to Jamie Farr? Also, you have to love a place that asks celebrities to sign its hot dog buns. Where else can you see baked goods autographed by the likes of Burt Reynolds and Barbara Bush?
The food at Packo’s is also pretty good. And being that it's in the Midwest, the portions are huge.
I went with Tony Packo's Feast. It features a Hungarian hot dog, which is like a smoked kielbasa, topped with chili sauce, mustard and onions; a cup of chili; a stuffed cabbage filled with pork, beef and rice; and a scoop of the sweet-hot pickles and peppers. All of it had a lot of flavor, and it all seemed to work well together.
The wife had the chicken paprikas, a chicken breast simmered in a mild paprika-based sauce served over dumplings. I found it bland. She, being from the Midwest, found it comforting.
The next day we drove into Windsor, Ontario. Not having had my fill of Hungarian food from the night before in Toledo, I ate lunch at the Blue Danube.
Now the Blue Danube is more of a traditional Continental restaurant, while Tony Packo's is more of a bar and grill. Nevertheless, both are Hungarian, and I can’t get Hungarian back in Baltimore, so I’ll forgive myself for falling into a mini-rut.
At the Danube the wife and I split a kettle of goulash. This goulash showcased just how wonderful a spice Hungarian paprika is, with a deep and complex flavor. I grew up thinking that paprika had no flavor. It was just something people put on deviled eggs for aesthetics. I didn’t grow up with soup like this.
I followed the soup with wiener schnitzel, while the wife had chicken topped with mushrooms and cheese. Her chicken was good, but the schnitzel was maybe the best I’ve ever had. Too often, schnitzel is heavy and greasy. This was not. It was very light, and the veal wasn't subdued by its breading.
After lunch I talked to the owner, who fled Hungary in the 1960s. She told me about her difficulties at the border crossing -- at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel in 2009.
Her complaints proved justified.
I drove through the tunnel, and proceeded to the customs gate. I thought I would have no delays. Passports and all other IDs were up to date. Everything seemed to be in order. And then the endless questions began, and for whatever reason I must have been giving off a worrisome vibe. Next thing I was told to park the car and leave the cell phones. The wife and I had to go wait in a room out of sight while the car was searched.
While I was sitting there, all I could think about is that I’m going to be cited for the Amish cheese, sausage and jerky that was in my trunk. Even though I bought it in Ohio, I was expecting to be accused of smuggling Canadian foodstuffs across the border.
About twenty minutes later we were released with no explanation. Nothing was said about the meat and cheese in my trunk. I guess if they were looking for something in particular, it was not Baby Swiss.
Last night the meal I had included quinoa, which I think of as a fairly inoffensive grain -- OK, grain-like product. (It's actually a seed.)
It reminded me of a comment by YumPorchetta a long time ago that I had saved:
what about strange food phobias? Mine is cooked quinoa – something about those translucent little balls with opaque rings disturbs me and triggers my GACK reflex. I’ve tried and tried to make myself look at recipes/photos featuring it; I know it’s a super trendy food and oh-so-good for you, but I just can’t help it…shudder ...
I don't think I have any strange food phobias. Although there are foods I don't like, they make perfect sense. A glass of buttermilk, for instance. I can't get it out of my head that IT'S SOUR MILK.
My mother had a strange food phobia. She wasn't comfortable eating fin fish because she had a horror of getting one of those fine little bones caught in her throat. It always puzzled me because, hey, you just pull it out.
My father couldn't eat beets or spinach, two of my favorite foods.
Of course, you may not want to contribute to this post, because I'm sure you think your food phobias are as reasonable as mine are, not strange at all.
(Curried quinoa salad -- sorry, YumPorchetta -- is loaded with whole grains and legumes. Photo by Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune/MCT)
I know how fond a lot of you are of Chicken Rico in Highlandtown. (Fond may be an understatement.) So I think you'll be interested in Other Reviewer Richard's review, which appeared in today's paper.
I must be getting hungry. Peruvian chicken sounds pretty good right about now.
(Jed Kirschbaum/Sun photographer)
Sometimes you think you've seen it all, and then something like this comes along.
Sometimes you categorize a people, in this case the British, as being a certain sort -- perhaps a little uptight -- and then you find out about the Icecreamists (Motto: Agents of Cool).
Check out the Web site, and then the "boudoir" at Selfridges, the high-end department store.
Wow. ...
Here's a description of some of the offerings: "Sweet and savoury ice creams which include Selfridges Ice Cream Sandwich with cream of Cucumber, Gordon's Glory, a 21st century reimagining of the Knickerbocker Glory and 'The Sex Pistol', a Natural Stimulant Ice Cream served as a shot in a pink water pistol!"
If anyone is planning a trip to London before the end of November, we want a full report.
We have Baskin-Robbins. England has the Icecreamists. Life isn't fair.
(Photo courtesy of Selfridges)
We've discussed the topic of terrible locations where restaurants open and close in rapid succession before on this blog.
Now CNNMoney.com has tackled the subject, and one of the five examples nationwide that the story discusses is Tabrizi's in Harborview.
The story says that Michael Tabrizi took on the space where so many places had failed because he believed the failures were caused by management mistakes. ...
It's interesting that one important reason why Tabrizi's has succeeded -- as much as any restaurant could have in that location in this economy -- wasn't discussed. Harborview itself is a much bigger community than when, say, Brian Boston of Milton Inn fame was the chef at Pier 500 in that same location.
That generates the kind of neighborhood customer base that simply wasn't available before for this off-the-beaten-path location.
I haven't heard much about Tabrizi's lately, except from Barry who sent me the link to the CNN story. He said six months ago he had a meal there that was inedible and "management didn't care a whit." Then he just went back and "everything was perfect."
I'm still waiting to hear from him why he took a chance and went a second time.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
The death of the founder of Ben's Chili Bowl last week reminded me that I had never gotten around to doing a Top 10 on Baltimore chili. As soon as the weather gets cooler, I start getting requests for recommendations, but chili isn't usually served at the restaurants I review.
Other Reviewer Richard did call the chili at Howard Street Delly "terrific" recently. ...
Last January reporter and columnist Susan Reimer asked me to post something so she could get ideas for a food story on chili she was doing. I was surprised at the time that there wasn't a greater response.
There certainly wasn't much discussion of what makes a fabulous chili, or whether it should contain meat or beans to be worthy of the name or be served with cheese. People named restaurants, but for the most part didn't explain why they liked the restaurant's chili so much.
And I was fascinated when Susan's story ran that the chili recipe she printed was from Nancy Longo of Pierpoint, not some scruffy little dive that only aficionados know have great chili.
Here are the restaurant names I collected from the previous post, but it would be nice to know what there was about these chilis that made them so good:
* Waterfront
* Duda's
* Nino Taco
* Padonia Station
* Wine Merchant
* Sobo Cafe
* Tambers (actually MD Canon did a great description of this one)
* Joe Squared
* Nacho Mama's (RayRay was very descriptive as well)
* Clementine
* Henninger's
* One World Cafe
If you've had any chili from any of these places, tell us what it's like. Or you can nominate a new one.
(Karl Merton Ferron/Sun photographer)
Dan D posted the following very interesting comment earlier. I don't doubt that he knows what he's talking about, but I'm amazed. I'm still dreaming about having wine for lunch every day when we were in Italy, and the fact that you could buy a drinkable bottle in the supermarket for one euro.
I have a lot of enthusiasm.
I don't suppose there is an overwhelming enthusiasm for Italian wines, which is a shame.
Posted by: Dan D | October 14, 2009 4:29 PM
Is it my imagination, or do chefs move around more than they used to? It always makes me nervous to praise a restaurant to the skies when the chef isn't also the owner. Because who knows? In the next month -- poof! -- he or she may have gone.
Recently we learned on this blog that Jesse Sandlin will be leaving Abacrombie Fine Food to return to Australia for awhile. I've heard she'll be gone for the month of November and then will return to Baltimore but hasn't decided where she'll land.
When I called Abacrombie just now, owner Jerry Pellegrino (of Corks fame) answered the phone. He told me he'll be running Abacrombie's kitchen, probably through the end of the year.
Abacrombie will be open Thursday through Sunday. With the demise of the opera, Wednesdays are no longer busy for the restaurant.
But wait. There's more. ...
In a somewhat different wrinkle, I just heard from Alan Morstein, owner of Regi's American Bistro in Federal Hill, that former chef Ben Troast was back in Regi's kitchen as executive chef after working for a year as a food service rep.
"Ben earned his stripes at Sedona Restaurant in Bethany Beach before coming to Regi's five years ago," Morstein said. "Having Ben back fits our modus operandi to a T by using farmer's market produce, local beef and bison as well as seasonal fish specialties."
Chris Paternotte, formerly of Vin in Towson, has left Taverna Corvino in Federal Hill. I'm waiting to hear back from the restaurant's management as to who has taken over for him in the kitchen and what changes will be made, if any.
When I hear, I'll update this post.
(Photo of Jerry Pellegrino by Monica Lopossay/Sun photographer)
I clearly don't read the Police Blotter enough for nuggets of restaurant news. Thanks to Liz Kay for pointing this one out to me:
After a man paid $71 for a bill of $91 at Umami Bistro in the 1500 block of Reisterstown Road about 9 p.m. Monday and refused to pay the remaining $20, he left and was about to get into his pickup truck when a restaurant employee confronted him and demanded the balance. Police said the man snatched the $71 and a check from the employee's grasp and drove away. ...
That's one of those items where you wish Paul Harvey were still around to say, "And now for the rest of the story..." Why did he pay so much but balk at the rest? What was a crook doing eating at such an unlikely restaurant? Did the employee get his license number? Etc., etc.
I had the employee of a restaurant chase after me once (or actually my party). We had left an adequate but not generous tip at a Chinese restaurant on Greenmount Avenue, and the owner came running out after us yelling it wouldn't even cover the cost of laundering the tablecloth.
Often those of you who read Dining@Large regularly already know whatever news is in my Table Talk column, which appears in the Taste section on Wednesdays.
But today I write about something unusual that I hadn't mentioned on the blog, a local gospel group that decided to open a soul food restaurant for the betterment of their community. ...
I also found out about the Prime Rib and Petit Louis being open for Thanksgiving dinner for the first time this year through comments you made, so thank you very much. If any others have come to your attention let me know.
As usual, Top 10 Wednesday has a few reader comments as well as the list. Reading them reminds me once again how odd it was that a few people got insulted by John's list of signs that you're a foodie. Especially since he's even more of a foodie than I am. At least I never cooked with Jacques Pepin.
But back to Table Talk for a moment. Of course, the page designer had to run the photo of Immeasurable, the gospel group; but I get to use the picture of the homemade ten-layer yellow cake with chocolate frosting, which looks a lot like a delicious Smith Island cake to me.
(Amy Davis/Sun photographer)
The Milton Inn in Sparks is holding a rare scotch tasting next Monday, Oct. 19.
The scotches will be for sale, but the tasting is complementary. I hope someone who knows his or her scotches will comment on this list because I can't tell you anything other than that these are some of the scotches that will be offered:
Edradour 10 years
Tullibardine 1992 14 years
Ledaig 1993 15 years
Linkwood 1995 13 years
Isle of Skye 8 years
Bladnoch 1992 16 years
Laphroaig 2001 7 years
Isle of Jura 1997 10 years
Brora 1981 24 years ...
And while you're at it, please explain the dates and the years listed. Is one the amount of aging and the other when it was bottled?The tasting will take place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., and you'll need a reservation because space is limited.
(Sun archives)
Wow, John. I don't know what to say. This is so...deep...for a Shallow Thought Wednesday guest post. And I never thought of you as a poet before. Or a Led Zeppelin fan. EL
Caraway Muffin (D@L Tribute: Stairway to Heaven Joynt. Dedicated to all the D@L lyric quoters.)
There’s a lady who’s sure
All the fritters are sold
So she’s buying a caraway muffin
When she eats it she knows
All the vegans will pose
For a picture with her near the oven
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh
And she’s buying a caraway muffin
There’s a sign on the wall
That says "please eat it all"
But you know crumb signs do have two meanings ...
Sometimes events pass me by.
I just heard about the Science Uncorked: The Genius of Wine series at the Maryland Science Center -- but it seems to be the second installment.
This one is tied to the Science Center’s latest touring exhibition, "Da Vinci: The Genius," which means it's an examination of "wines from the homeland of Leonardo da Vinci."
That would be Italy.
I think they've got the right idea: Call it science, but really talk about and drink a lot of Italian wines from different regions and of different vintages. And, OK, maybe learn something.
The event takes place next Thursday, Oct. 22, beginning at 6:30 p.m. The Wine Market is in charge, and the admission ($40 for members, $45, nonmembers) includes hors d’oeuvres by Chef Jason Lear of the Wine Market.
(Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images)
I feel like I should weigh in on the Cafe Hon Pink Flamingo Issue, but I'm hesitant to do so.
Cafe Hon's owner, Denise Whiting, has received a letter from the city saying that she has to have a minor privilege permit because her flamingo projects out into public space.
She says the flamingo, made of resin, is “public art.”
I have a mild Oh for Heaven's Sake reaction to the flap -- aren't there more important things for city inspectors to worry about -- but the minute I say that, someone will come up with a really good argument why the bird should be taken down, or why Whiting should be taxed. And I'll feel foolish for thinking it wasn't important. ...
Buried in the story is the suggestion that a complaint triggered the city action. I wonder if a resident who was tired of the neighborhood's down-home image instigated it.
Midnight Sun Sam and I were talking about the story, and he told me about a restaurant in Federal Hill that found out from a city inspector it could have no more than three chairs at each outdoor table according to its license, and the tables had to be touching the restaurant exterior.
Inspectors, he's heard, are cracking down citywide on such infractions.
(Photo of the flamingo and the owner's son, Thomas Whiting, by Jed Kirschbaum/Sun photographer)
I'm afraid I've been a little slow with this post -- about two days slow -- but I have an excuse.
The photo for the review isn't going to be shot until later today, so when I ate at Umi Sake in Cockeysville I took a few pictures with my phone camera to go with this preview. ...
Unfortunately, I couldn't get my phone to send them to my computer until I had a long talk with Verizon customer service.
I don't want to bore you with my latest phone woes; I just want to tell you about the most amazing thing the woman I spoke to said to me. When I finally wailed in desperation (you know I'm not good in these conversations), "What would you do if you were me in this situation," she said, "I don't know. Verizon isn't my service provider."
I was so astounded I forgot to ask her who is.
Alas, my photos were terrible, so I ended up taking one from the restaurant's Web site.
Anyway, next Sunday I'll be telling you about Cockeysville's newest sushi restaurant. It's actually much more than that, in case you're wondering why that area -- so near to Towson -- needs any more sushi.
(Photo courtesy of Umi Sake)
I'm gearing up to have the flu because I keep putting off getting a flu shot, only because rumors still abound that we will get them here at the Sun in spite of the new Purell dispensers.
This is one of those cases where waiting for a discounted flu shot that may or may not happen night not be the best idea, but whatever. ...
So in honor of high fever, muscle aches, sore throats, coughs and even a touch of nausea, this week's Top 10 Tuesday features my 10 favorite sick foods. Thanks to Charm City Mom Kate for suggesting the idea:
* Orange juice/ginger ale. This isn't an either-or. It's orange juice mixed with ginger ale half and half over ice because for some reason at the time you need orange juice most, it tastes worst. The ginger ale cuts the acidity and is bubbly, which adds interest at a time when not much is interesting, including whether you live or die.
* Chicken noodle soup from Eddie's at Roland Park. Last winter when I had the Endless Cold, I stopped at Eddie's every night for a week and picked up either chicken noodle or Maryland crab. One or the other was always available. Either will work, but the chicken noodle was my favorite. Please post below if you have other sources to recommend.
* Saltines. With or without the soup. An essential.
* Spicy ramyun noodles with egg from Nina's Espresso Bar. (Ramen noodles to us Americans.) Nina's is the Korean cafe near the Sun, which you wouldn't exactly guess from the name, and this is the best $5.75 you can spend when you're sick and have a stuffy nose. Better than Afrin.
* Raita and rice. I discovered this combo during my last Brush with Death, chronicled on this blog. I believe the raita contains enough probiotics to conquer any flu bug, but that's just my justification for craving Indian yogurt/salad at a time like this.
* Baugher's canned peaches in heavy syrup. Opening a can of these was a desperation move on my part. (I had very little sick food in the house when I was last under the weather.) But they went down remarkably easily, and the heavy syrup, which would normally be gaggingly sweet, tasted even better than the peaches.
* Jamba Juice. We have a slight problem here, folks. We don't have a Jamba Juice in the Baltimore area as far as I know. The closest is DC. When Gailor lived in Beverly Hills, she had a Jamba Juice franchise a couple of blocks from her apartment. Once when I was visiting her and caught a bad cold, I lived on Jamba Juice for the duration of my short visit. My cold was gone before I left. Maybe other smoothies would work too, but I've never had any others.
* Wonton soup from Jumbo Seafood in Pikesville. You may begin to see a soup pattern here. I recommend the Hong Kong Style Crystal Won Ton Soup ($7), with "crystal wonton, dim sum style, thinner wrapper filled with chicken & shrimp."
* Spumoni ice cream (or gelato). Unfortunately I haven't seen it around here anywhere. The last time I had it was in Venice, incredibly smooth and creamy and just the thing to calm an incipient sore throat.
* Hot tea with lemon and sugar. Two things I never put in my tea normally taste right when I have a cold or the flu. I have no idea why.
(Istockphoto)
Speaking of Korean restaurants, HowChow just alerted me to a new food blog -- new to me, at least.
The blog, Kevin and Ann Eat Everything, has an excellent post on Korean Chinese food. There are two restaurants in Ellicott City where you can get it, Tian and Han Joong Kwan.
As the blog points out, we think of them as Korean restaurants, but in Korea they would probably be considered Chinese. ...
Kevin, who wrote the post, has suggestions on what to order and so on. But the post also raises the interesting question of what happens when another country takes over a cuisine that we're familiar with, makes it its own, and then introduces the new version to us.
I haven't eaten at either of these restaurants, but maybe you have:
Han Joong Kwan, 9338 Baltimore National Pike, 410-461-1099
Tian, 8151 Baltimore National Pike, 410-418-8198
(Photo courtesy of Kevin and Ann Eat Everything)
I woke up this morning realizing I had made a horrible mistake. There should have been an eighth option under the Comfort Food Poll: chocolate.
If I add it now, the results will be totally skewed (because the poll has been really scientific up until now). ...
The problem is that chocolate never crosses my mind when the days are long and the weather is nice. And then we start having days like this. Which in a month I will consider nice and light-filled compared to what I'll be going through then.
I realize I'm a sissy, but winter is a time of change and stress for me. Who am I kidding? Fall is a time of change and stress for me. Bring on the comfort food, the alcohol, and most especially the chocolate.
And please vote in the Comfort Food Poll if you haven't already.
(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
When I first published this photo maybe a couple of years ago, I vaguely remember some readers wondered what it was. Now if I published it without comment, I think people would say, "Wow, that charcuterie looks great" and want to know the particulars and where it was from. For the record, it's Clementine's charcuterie sampler: (clockwise from the bottom) pork garlic green onion lager sausage, tomato ginger marmalade, house-cured duck breast ham, chicken liver pate with rye whiskey, and coriander honey red cabbage jam. ...
Clementine wasn't the only restaurant offering its own charcuterie, but it was the one that made a big deal about it (and rightly so). Now several places that have open up since then have chefs who are interested in making their own sausages, pates and house-cured meats.
B & O American Brasserie and Alizee come to mind immediately.
Feast@4East in Mount Vernon had what it called simply "charcuterie" on the menu when I ate there. It turned out to be a delicious homemade pate. Chameleon in Lauraville had a fabulous charcuterie plate.
I haven't been to Miss Irene's and Pure Wine Cafe in Ellicott City, but I've heard they have very nice charcuterie and cheese plates.
I'm not saying charcuterie is new around here -- Cafe Normandie in Annapolis has been serving it forever -- but it seems to me chefs are more interested in creating their own and offering customers a range of selections than they used to be.
If I could come up with 10 examples...
(Andre F. Chung/Sun photographer)
Well, this was a surprising comment to find under the Ravens tailgating post I did earlier this morning:
this is way off topic, but I thought I'd clear the air a little bit. I am leaving Abacrombie. my departure is strictly for personal reasons-a recent death of someone very close to me has made me feel the need for some time off to decompress ans reboot my systems. I do not know at this point where or what I will be doing next. thanks for all of the support everyone has given these past couple of years, I hope it will continue with my next venture, whatever that may be.
Posted by: Jesse Sandlin | October 11, 2009 12:23 PM
Wow. That's startling. I always thought I'd be the only one to quit on my blog. I suppose it could be a hoax, but it sounds genuine -- and very sad. (I called, of course, but the restaurant is only open Wednesday through Saturday.)
(Chiaki Kawajiri/Sun photographer)
Under my post on 100 things every foodie should do in Baltimore, bob posted this comment:
... I would say go to a GOOD tailgate for a Ravens game. We make the top 5 every year in lists of places with the best tailgates in the NFL. I have seen some not so traditional tailgate items being cooked at some.
Posted by: bob | October 1, 2009 8:57 PM
I didn't realize there was a list of best NFL tailgates, let alone that we made the top five. ...
I just looked through our archives and didn't come up with a story about the list. However, Kevin Cowherd did write something on Ravens tailgating in '05, specifically on a couple of tailgating brothers, Marc and Gary Scher, who call themselves the Poe Brothers.
Here are their tips for a great party. I do like the part about no fondue:
"Don't get too fancy: In other words, be sure to serve tailgate-friendly food. Avoid anything that has to be cut with knife and fork, or foods that are a hassle to eat.
'This is tailgating, it's not sit-down dining,' said Marc Scher. 'Most people are standing and eating ... [so] you want something you can hold with one hand.'
Ham on fresh rolls, meaty ribs, big crackers that can be raked through the crab dip - these are all proven winners. They allow people to eat and talk football at the same time.
'Some [tailgaters] will have crabs,' said Gary Scher. 'But that's a social thing. When you eat crabs, you're concentrating on crabs. But this is about Ravens football.'
In a sense, the Poe Brothers' menu philosophy can be summed up in two words: no fondue.
'We tried it once - it didn't work,' said Marc Scher. 'Too messy. Too hard to keep hot.'
Don't be predictable: Try to come up with a new wrinkle for each tailgate party.
For the Poe Brothers, this often involves a surprise on their menu. Marc's Tailgate Tenderloin was a recent surprise - and a big hit - as were the fried oysters and flank steak they've also trotted out.
Around Thanksgiving, they might even serve turkey with all the trimmings.
'We like to keep [guests] guessing,' said Gary Scher.
Don't forget your guests: A tailgate party is about more than just the food. It's also a great social event.
'We always mingle with our guests,' said Gary Scher. 'We try to give everyone a little personal attention.'
This extends down to the 20-ounce plastic beer cup that each guest receives, complete with his or her nickname and jersey number on it."
(Unfortunately, there wasn't a photo of the Poe Brothers that I could find. The one above had this caption: Jim Weslow is the "grill-master" holding the beef and rump roast he is about to grill for his friends Richard Osman, Kelly Myron (seated) and Jerry Kossol before the first regular season Raven game of the year. Gene Sweeney Jr./Sun photographer)
Without meaning to stir up the pot again -- really -- I have to award this week's Comment of the Week to Cleatus. Come on, you know it's funny. EL
You: Waitress, can we have some more lightly carbonated water from the mineral springs on the western approach just outside Ravenna shipped in earthen flasks with calvados-soaked apricots as stoppers, as well as some more of that delicious crusty baguette made from desiccated sea-algae flour from the fronds of the giant plumes in the Sargasso Sea?
Waitress: Certainly, coming right up. You're all foodies, aren't you? ...
You: Why, yes, how could you tell?
W: Well, for one thing, what's that goblet of mare sweat doing on the table?
You: That's not mare sweat. That's a goblet of Alka Seltzer sans fizz. My wife has a touchy stomach, but she is a chronic procrastinator.
W: May I bring her an after soothing dinner mint?
You: Yes, please, and a sphygmomanometer. By the way, may I touch you lightly?
W: Of course. Anything else?
You: Our check, please.
W: You'll be happy to learn that we now print our checks on food-grade rice parchment. You may eat the check after you've paid it.
You: Can I get that in six slices, to go?
W: Yes. The gratuity will be included, also edible, so we’ll be watching from the bus station as you all squabble about it. I'll remove the cutlery now...
You: Delightful. But leave that big pepper mill, will you?
Posted by: Cleatus | October 7, 2009 10:13 AM
I've been hearing positive things about Azul 17, a new Mexican restaurant in Columbia that's as much hot spot as place to eat. But the food's good, my correspondents have been telling me.
Here's what Sam has to say about its grand opening this weekend on Midnight Sun. And here's what HowChow is reporting.
(Photo courtesy of Azul 17)
Having spent a good part of my morning trying to figure out how to get to Point B from Point A without getting stuck in marathon traffic, I feel I ought to at least get a blog post out of it.
Did any of you run? If so, what did you eat to prepare, and what did you eat afterwards? Sarah KK said she was drinking water and Gatorade for the two days before. That didn't sound like it would do it to me.
(Kenneth K. Lam/Sun photographer)
I came across a story this week asking chefs in another city which dishes on their menus bored them to tears and why.
Of course, one of them said he wouldn't have an item on his menu that he didn't enjoy preparing, which is the proper response but probably not true. At least it wouldn't be true for most restaurants.
I'll never forget a chef from out of town who opened a restaurant here saying he was told you can't have a restaurant in Baltimore, particularly downtown, without having a crab cake on the menu.
That's just sad. ...
But restaurateurs do have to be practical. You have to have at least some dishes on your menu that people love and order over and over again, and therefore your chef could get bored fixing.
Anyway, here's the story. I wonder what Baltimore chefs would say. Maybe I'll steal this story idea sometime when Sarah KK needs a restaurant-oriented story for the Taste section. (And if any chefs want to answer this for us, please post below.)
(Kim Hairston/Sun photographer)
As faithful readers of this blog know, one of its main purposes is to entertain. If you want more informational reading about local restaurants, I recommend my columns in the print edition. Here I poke fun at everything, including myself.
But the following comment made me see that some may have taken what I considered good-natured ribbing by myself and other commenters more personally than I'm comfortable with. I feel bad about that: ...
Well I dont want to beat a dead horse, but in your post you called foam "precious" which is why the direction, I think, quickly turned to "The foam, the liquid nitrogen quick frozen junk, and deconstruction. I'm over it all." And the whole tone is very "oh no, here it comes againnnn", and cleatus posting his "haha, foodies are dumb!" post.
Im thankful that you spelled out your position, it honestly wasnt clear to me before. I guess its mostly the tone of other posters that inspired me to debate.
Posted by: hmm | October 9, 2009 12:49 AM
When I make fun of something, I don't want to hold up any local chefs for derision. That's why I didn't mention where I got the Cocoa Puff dessert, and I certainly didn't want to offend Bettina Clair, the pastry chef, who made the dessert and commented under the post.
I don't know any of the other readers who commented, but they probably don't want to hurt anyone's feelings either. Since they are regular readers of Dining@Large, I imagine they all consider themselves foodies, and are actually pretty sophisticated about restaurant trends. I haven't heard anyone here complain, for instance, about the food at Abacrombie; and Jesse Sandlin was doing beet foam on her amuses two years ago when I reviewed the restaurant.
But nothing is really sacred in the food world, is it? (Other than heirloom tomatoes.) Let me direct you to an earlier entry on Anthony Bourdain's Overrated Menu in case you missed it.
I do believe, unlike many people fascinated by food, that no matter how wonderful the restaurant and world-famous the chef, it's still a service industry. The customer comes first. Hence my post a couple of years ago on one of the few pretentious restaurant experiences I've had in LA.
Some of the most successful restaurants in Baltimore are doing pretty exciting things but not being pretentious about it. Salt, the Wine Market and Woodberry Kitchen come to mind immediately. B & O American Brasserie and Alizee are too new to put in that category, but they have potential.
Charleston is in a category by itself, a much more formal restaurant, but I still don't think you can call it pretentious.
What I like about Baltimore's best chefs is that they don't seem to take themselves too seriously. (OK, Charleston's Cindy Wolf takes herself seriously, but not too seriously.) And their customers don't either.
I think that's a good thing. It doesn't mean that Baltimoreans aren't more than willing to try new things -- and pay well to do it.
(Doug Kapustin/Sun photographer)
A researcher at the University of South Carolina believes that people are not as likely as we think they are to turn to comfort food in times of stress.
Mmmm. South Carolina: Grits, barbecue, hush puppies, fried fish.
Oh, sorry. I got off track for a moment.
I'm not going to say this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. I'm going to look at the evidence and make an informed assessment. ...
Stacy Wood's paper, "The Comfort Food Fallacy: Avoiding Old Favorites in Times of Change," was published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
In her work, she found that times of stress and change correlated with choosing unfamiliar foods. In other words, your significant other breaks up with you so instead of reaching for the carton of chocolate mint ice cream you decide to go for the eel at a sushi bar.
I don't believe it.
In one study she created a fictional student and then asked participants whether he would reach for a familiar brand of potato chips in a stressful time or a brand of British "crisps" in flavors like Cheese & Pickles. However, let me point out that these are both potato chips -- greasy, salty, caloric. That's my definition of comfort food, familiar or not.
OK, now that I've had my fun, and methodology aside, the research does raise an interesting question: Is it possible our assumptions about comfort food aren't always true? Do some of us take the opportunity in times of stress and negative change in our lives to change other things and have new experiences -- including food? Are we more open to broader change in times of change?
I should create a poll when I get into work asking whether readers are more likely to eat comfort foods or unfamiliar foods in times of stress.
(Photo of black-and-white cream pie by Lloyd Fox/Sun photographer)
I know how much you like tipping questions, so chew on this:
Hi EL;
Your Sunday column hit home regarding a situation my wife and I had last week.
When we attended a reunion in the East Cleveland, Ohio area, we stayed at a newly built Hilton Hotel. We had dinner with two friends on the night we arrived; there was only employee on the restaurant floor. She was the server, the busser and the bartender.
As a result, even though [she] was working extra hard, the service to our table was less than good. So should I have tipped a full 20% because she was doing her best, or tip 5% because the service was poor?
Thanks;
CG
Ben Ali, founder of the DC institution Ben's Chili Bowl, died yesterday at age 82. According to the Web site, it was of natural causes.
If you don't know about the place, check out the history on its site. Pretty impressive.
Thanks to chowsearch for alerting me.
(Photo courtesy of Ben's Chili Bowl)
Other Reviewer Richard had a very good meal at the newest restaurant in what used to be the closest thing Baltimore had to a Chinatown. I've been wondering how ZhongShan was doing, especially as none of you has mentioned it. It sounds like it's flourishing in one of those Bermuda Triangle locations.
Pictured are selections from the dim sum menu (clockwise from bottom): vegetable scallion pork bun, steamed shrimp dumplings, Chinese egg sponge cake, mini sweet rice, taro dumplings. In the center are crispy sesame balls and fried dumplings at Zhongshan. ...
In case you missed it, for yesterday's Table Talk column I tracked down an owner of Bagby Pizza Co. in Harbor East, who gave me the quote of the day when I asked why he had decided to open a pizzeria: "You have to love pizza. C'mon."
The Top 10 from a week ago was also in the Taste section, with some of your comments.
(Kim Hairston/Sun photographer)
Lee Biars, managing partner of Diamondback Tavern in Ellicott City and a sometime commenter on this blog, told me the owners of Diamondback have joined with new investors to open an Italian restaurant at 8085 Main St. where Jordan's Steakhouse used to be.
The new place will be called Portalli's, and Lee promises "a good mix of unique cutting edge preparations as well as classic Italian favorites." ...
Evan Brown, one of the owners, will be Director of Operations. He may not sound like he's Italian, but the name "Portalli" comes from his mother's side of the family. Brown will be leaving the Greystone Grill, where he's the general manager, to come to Portalli's. Before that he was at the Prime Rib.
The executive chef will be Keith Holsey, who was also at the Greystone Grill. He was a sous chef at Jordan's before that.
Portalli's menu is still in the development stage, but dinner entrees should fall somewhere between $10 and $25.
"We plan on incorporating everything we love about Italian cuisine from all areas of Italy including several traditional Portalli family dishes," Lee told me. "The goal is to create an Italian dining destination that will have enough originality and creativity for foodies, but will also be approachable for the casual diner or families looking for a fun night out."
The target opening date is mid- to late November, but that will only happen if various licenses come through in time.
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
Nightlife reporter Sam Sessa ended up with a food story recently without meaning to, or anyway a food snippet, and he kindly shared it with me rather than post it on Midnight Sun. Here's Sam. EL
A couple of weeks ago, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry -- buff chest, long locks and all -- stopped by Baltimore to promote his new solo album. ...
I hung out with Perry for a while on his tour bus, and, oddly enough, spent a lot of time talking about food. I had no idea he's been a foodie for more than 35 years, and has his own line of hot sauces. He also told me he's planning on launching his own brand of mac 'n' cheese in the near future, called Joe Perry's Rock 'n' Roni. Heh.
I wrote a piece about Perry that ran in Sunday's paper. As you can imagine, I didn't have much space to mention the foodie side of Perry. Here are the leftovers from our conversation.
Q: What makes a good hot sauce, Joe?
A: A good hot sauce should be versatile. Not too hot that it kills the flavor of everything else around it. It accentuates the flavor of the food as opposed to fighting it.
There's a whole culture of macho. It's like, "Try this, see if you can handle this." They use this pepper extract in the hot sauce. It's brutal. I tried it once or twice, but I won't go near that stuff. It just kills any other flavor around it. Anything within six feet you can forget about tasting.
Q: You've been in great shape for years now. Is it from working out or eating well, or both?
A: I stopped eating preservatives in about 1972. Road food has preservatives in it. Ever since I started buying my own food, I always look at the labels and make sure there are no preservatives. They're finding new ways to preserve foods that are healthier than others. That's a really good thing.
I stay away from the middle of big supermarkets, because that's where all the junk is. I go around the outside where the fresh fruit is. I stick to those areas. ... I don't know if that has anything to do with my present state of health. I've been working with good genes, I think.
(AP photo by Jeff Christensen)
Thank God for this Shallow Thought Wednesday from guest poster John Lindner. He has come to my rescue once again with the last word on the star rating system just when I needed it to keep me from snapping at yet another of my readers, who don't deserve it. Here's John. EL
DIY Restaurant Reviews, Part II
Having skipped Part I, we move directly to Part II of DIY Restaurant Review: The Star Rating System. In this lesson, we cover two important aspects of the system: ...
Star allocation
1. Food – This is a very dense star and to many reviewers the most important one. Let your palate, not your heart, be your guide.
2. Service – Typically considered the next most important star. Loss of this star can affect the food star, dimming it by as much as half. When this star is in ascendance, it can brighten the Food Star by a magnitude of as much as one fourth.
3. Ambience – pronounced am-bee-ents except by Francophiles who pass ahm-bee-awns through the nose. Noise, the wrong music, jarring colors, and let’s not forget flies, can seriously compromise this star.
4. Mood – the fickle mood star. Almost impossible to see with the naked eye. The Fourth Star, as it is sometimes known, is usually awarded fractionally. Some reviewers include presentation in this star’s jurisdiction. Beware its 50 percent intensity when matched with three perfect preceding stars.*
How to award stars
We can’t possibly cover all variations here because we are not being paid. However, some elementary rules of thumb:
- The Food Star must be awarded with great care. Simply good food is worth half a star. Three-quarters star may be awarded when dishes are consistently excellent examples of good food. A full star may be awarded only to surprisingly good food, perfectly prepared good food, or free food.
- The Service Star: Half a service star is awarded competent service that renders one’s order as placed. Three-quarters goes to the attentive but not intrusive server who recommends the right wine and steers you to a better dish that happens to be less expensive. A full star goes to the empath who makes you feel like a star. The service star is easily eclipsed when a server fails to write down one’s order and then gets something wrong. Conversely, add one-eighth magnitude for flourish if the server goes by memory and gets everything perfectly right.
- Ambience: Award half a star to a decently appointed dining area; three-quarters if they get the music, spacing and decor right; a full star if you want to move in.
- Mood: All the leftover little things apply here, including your mood. If you come in crabby and depressed but leave revived by your world made, however momentarily, right, award a full star. Conversely, no restaurant, no matter how perfectly it comports itself in every other detail, may be awarded a full mood star if it allows a guest to enter wearing flip-flops.
* The EL Supernova – aka the 3½ Kiss-of-Death Star. Awarded a restaurant that has everything but good luck.
(STW star rating photo by Roger Kirby/Courtesy Stock Xchng. Note: Judging by her expression the woman with the wine glass will give this meal a 2½-star rating. While the chef is serving a wonderful meal, it's not what she ordered, the wine glasses are wrong and the candlesticks are heinous. Her dinner companion, her fiance, has just informed her he's sold the Jag to help pay off gambling debts. Theoretically that last fact should not affect the review, but it will.)
[STW News Freebie that has nothing to do with this post.]
Yesterday I called Kali's Court to find out if Tapas Adela, the fourth restaurant in the Kali's Restaurant Group, would be opening on schedule on Oct. 16.
Business partner Karen Patten couldn't tell me for sure because there were still city inspections to be done, but she did mention that for the first time ever Kali's Court would be open on Thanksgiving Day. Reservations are being taken now. ...
I'm sitting here puzzling over how to handle Thanksgiving. So many restaurants are open it doesn't make sense to list them all, but if there are any open for the first time like Kali's, that would be worth noting.
I also welcome any restaurant owners who want to give details of what they are offering this year, new or not. Please post below.
Or if any of you who are planning to eat out this year want to tell us where you have reservations and why, that's good, too.
(Jed Kirschbaum/Sun photographer)
Maybe you had to live through the worst excesses of nouvelle cuisine to be wary of restaurant preciousness. Is it my imagination, but are we at the beginning of a trend again?
Just the fact that the amuse bouche is back in style suggests we are. ...
This could be a good thing or a bad thing. I don't mind looking at something and thinking, "Ooooh, isn't that cute!!!!" if it ends up tasting great.
It might be some elaborately artistic working of ingredients like the saffron and cardamom panna cotta with mascarpone, saffron tuile and mango coulis (pictured) at Bistro Blanc in Glenelg.
Or it might be an amusing concept like the grilled cheese soup with heirloom tomato on the side at the Blue Hill Tavern in Brewers Hill, a clever play on the classic tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich on the side.
Somewhere, however, I had an elegant dessert on a plate decorated with a few Cocoa Puffs. That's taking restaurant whimsy too far.
We never had our conversation about foam, but it falls into the restaurant preciousness category unless it's done very well, and maybe even then. Foam has to be so pretty you not only don't say "eww," you don't say to yourself, "This is really silly."
I love trompe l'oeil food, like a traditional buche de noel with meringue mushrooms. But you don't ever want to feel like your food has been overly handled.
Or maybe I'm just worrying too much, and restaurant whimsy isn't a trend that will spiral out of control, but simply a flash in the pan.
(Elizabeth Malby/Sun photographer)
Just in case you missed it, take a look at Chowsearch's comment under my earlier post on not eating my burgers rare anymore, and also the comment from an American Meat Institute spokesperson under the Picture of Health's post on the same subject.
We all decide how much we want to roll the dice when issues like this come up. I've curtailed my raw fish sushi exposure, but can never resist raw oysters. I eat rare meat, but I think I'm going to learn to love medium hamburgers -- and hope that's good enough.
(Kenneth K. Lam/Sun photographer)
I got this e-mail from Trip Klaus this morning. I have to admit I hadn't noticed what he's referring to, because I avert my eyes from the ads:
Is this what Baltimore dining has come to? Free Parking. I was noticing the ads on your blog for Charleston and Wine Market as well as the Alizee website all touting their free parking. What's up with this?
When I thought about it, though, it makes sense to me because even more terrifying than believing you're going to get shot in the head if you venture downtown is the thought that you might not get a parking space. ...
My parking gets paid for by the Sun when I review; but the last time I parked on Pier V to visit a restaurant there, I forked over $15. I wouldn't do that on my own. I'd park on the street somewhere a few blocks away.
So maybe advertising free parking is aimed at those timid non-city dwellers who aren't used to circling and looking for a space, or walking when they find it. The ad does two things: It not only promises you won't pay an arm and a leg for parking, it guarantees a space near the restaurant.
I agree with Trip Klaus, though. It's kind of sad restaurants think it's necessary to do.
On my last night in Evanston, Gailor was feeling too punk to go anywhere much for dinner, so we ended up walking a couple of blocks to an upscale-casual chain called Bravo Cucina Italiana.
It was a good choice because she was wearing her pajamas, and rather than make her feel bad about it I decided to dress down accordingly. (Only a slight exaggeration.)
I tell you this to say it was amazing how nice the staff was to us anyway. ...
My theory is that it was due at least in part to the guest survey we were invited to take part in. It wasn't some card, but an invitation at the bottom of the check to visit an independent Web site -- and the promise that we would get $5 off our next meal if we signed on and completed the survey.
That's a nice little incentive, and I can't see a downside for the restaurant. Of course, it's an independent site, so the restaurants must have to pay; but it gets the customers back, it encourages the staff to be noticeably friendly and efficient, and the restaurant might actually learn something useful. (Gailor did the survey and said you refer to your server by name.)
Maybe other chains do this. Gailor had noticed that Cosi, another chain, issues invitations to participate (for $2 off the next meal) on a more random basis.
I wonder if independent restaurants would benefit, or whether it would just be too expensive. Of course, they could always do it on their own sites. It somehow seems like more of an incentive than, say, knowing you get 5 percent off your check on a certain day. You feel like you've earned a little reward.
(Photo courtesy of Bravo Web site)
We've talked about what makes someone a foodie before, but I don't think any of us articulated it as precisely as John Lindner has in this guest post Top 10. Thanks, John, for making it a little easier to come back from vacation today.
Here's John with the Top 10 Signs You're a Foodie: ...
1. You remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard that Martick’s closed.
2. You know that basmati is not the capital of India.
3. Your meal is ruined when you’re served from your left (or right – the point is, darn it, it matters).
4. You know the real CIA is a school in New York.
5. You can tell by scent as soon as you enter the restaurant which four cheeses they use in their quattro formaggi sauce and in your opinion they went a little overboard on the Asiago.
6. You would starve to death if you were trapped for 40 days in a fully stocked Olive Garden.
7. Not only do you know what cuy is, you know where to find it outside Ecuador and Peru.
8. You sample bread from a wood-fired oven and turn up your nose at the hint of insufficiently aged elm.
9. You spell Kryptonite M A R G A R I N E.
10. You’re keenly aware that the first word in diet is “die."
(David Hobby/Sun photographer)
I just got off the plane from Chicago (with a quick detour to Whole Foods to buy staples and a late vegetarian sushi and black cherry soda lunch -- not as dreadful a combination as it sounds).
When I got home and to my computer, the first thing I saw was an e-mail from Hal Laurent telling me that Gourmet magazine is going to cease publication. ...
Somewhere I have the first Gourmet magazine I ever bought, with fresh corn in a blue pot on the cover and my recipe for corn pudding inside. Somewhere are the holiday issues I saved over the years, never making all the elaborate dishes and cookies and Christmas puddings, but always planning to.
On my cookbook shelves are all the early Gourmet cookbooks, and there were a lot of them, the ones that taught me how to entertain. I even still have the "You Asked for It" recipes for dishes from Baltimore restaurants like Danny's in their heyday. I can't believe Gourmet won't be around, even though I stopped subscribing years ago.
And that, of course, was the problem.
(Later: Thanks also to Robert of Cross Keys and turkeybone who let me know on my other e-mail, which I checked just now.)
We've talked about restaurant kitchens oversalting food before, but I bet you've never looked at salt from this point of view.
Instead of salt on food, how about food on salt?
These are blocks of pink primordial ocean Himalayan sea salt. ...
I'm not sure what I think about this trendlet and the restaurants doing it. On the one hand, it seems really silly. On the other, those blocks of salt are pretty and the whole thing is kind of fun. Does that justify it?
Thanks to summer for pointing out this story in the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel on this new way to use salt.
(Trio of salt plates courtesy of Posh Salt Web site)
When I asked my husband whether he would give the food at Alizee, which I reviewed yesterday, four stars, he said it was very difficult for him to separate the food from the service.
It wasn't exactly bad service we got there, just that we had to wait for so long for our dishes. He also asked for more bread, and it didn't arrive until he had almost finished his entree.
I fared a little better because I was the one of us four who got her drink (and I went ahead and drank my glass of wine; it had been a long day). I was just about finished mine when the other three arrived, after some prompting by us. ...
Probably the most frustrating thing for me was at the end of a long evening seeing our desserts go from the kitchen to the bar and then back again before coming to us because of some miscommunication. (Another waiter had pitched in to help, I guess, who didn't know where we sat.) I was ready to leave.
And yet, I enjoyed every morsel of my dinner and as much of everyone else's that I could talk them out of. I was expecting it to be good, but not as good as it was. Chef deLutis has been honing his skills since I last ate his cooking.
If you read the review in the print edition, by the way, there was a misunderstanding about the oysters; and one of the sentences was changed to suggest the smoke was introduced under them. That should have been "under the cover." Sorry for the confusion.
(Lloyd Fox/Sun photographer)
I like this idea a lot as a Top 10 topic.
I'm not sure how the reader got the idea that Top 10 suggestions were limited to regulars, but perish the thought. We could use some new blood and this is a good one.
The only other restaurants offering extras that I can think of off the top of my head are Sotto Sopra, which does all sorts of extras, and Donna's, which has cooking classes; but I'm sure there are more. Here's his e-mail:
I’m not sure if suggesting Top 10 list topics is limited to veteran commenters, but here goes…
How about Top 10 restaurants that offer something more?
I’m not sure if there are 10 to cover, but some friends and I did one of Jerry Pellegrino’s classes at Corks on Sunday and had a wonderful experience; one that will keep us returning to the restaurant from now on. ...
I’ve also done a wine tasting at Cinghiale that made it a place we make sure we get back to regularly.
I think Nancy Longo does a class at Pierpoint?
I guess it’s sort of in line with the ‘can the service and staff elevate a place…?’ conversation. Do you think that more chefs are offering these ‘classes’ and events in response to poorer restaurant turnout? I’d love to know of more opportunities like this in Baltimore.
Thanks!
(Photo by Brendan Cavanaugh/special to the Sun)
I'm afraid there isn't going to be one. I'm having fun with my daughter here in Evanston, although the fun consists of going to the movies and reading instead of the sightseeing in Chicago because she's under the weather.
Next Sunday you'll find a little box that says, "Elizabeth Large is on vacation. Her review will return next week." Although by the time you read that, of course, I will no longer be on vacation.
Below is the schedule of chef/farm pairings and the times the chefs will be at the market.
This is also the post I told you I might or might not remember to do about the Fabulous Farm to Table Tour.
If you go to the farmers market under the viaduct today, please post what you thought of the event below. Or you can just tell me about what great bicolor corn I missed by being in Evanston.
I'm spending my time washing my hands and trying to avoid the flu, not having wonderful meals to tell you about. So far, so good, but my daughter hasn't been so lucky. ...
Not that she has the flu (I don't think), but I went with her to the student health services yesterday to get her flu shot, and since then she's been feeling punk. I think I'm going to have to do the excellent Top 10 idea Charm City Mom Kate gave me, Top 10 foods to eat when you have the flu.
Not this week because I'll still be on vacation, so I'm going to use one John Lindner sent me, but maybe the following week. If it weren't for the fact that it's reprinted in the paper edition, I'd name one through three foods to eat when you have the flu and leave the rest of them blank. I never have much appetite when I'm sick.
But I'm getting off topic here. This is the schedule the PR person sent me, if you want to go see a particular chef today. While you're at it, see if Chef Sandlin will tell you if she's leaving Abacrombie or if that's just a rumor:
CHEF/FARMER PAIRINGS SCHEDULE:
Pairings subject to change
Tent 1:
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.
Jesse Sandlin of Abacrombie + Richfields Farms/South Mt. Creamery
9:15 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.
Jason Gehring of Cinghiale + Woerner’s Orchards
10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Chris Paternotte of Taverna Corvino + South Mt. Creamery/Triangle Apiaries
Tent 2:
8:15 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.
Bill Crouse of Sotto Sopra + Richfields Farms
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen + Reid’s Orchard
10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Patrick Morrow of Ryleigh’s Oyster + Gunpowder Bison
Tent 3:
8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
Rashad Edwards of Meli Patisserie & Bistro + Truck Patch Farms
9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.
Ben Troast of Regi’s American Bistro + Bartenfelder Farms/Martin Farms
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Brian Martin of Kali’s Court + TBD
Tent 4:
8:15 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.
Sandy Lawler of Feast @ 4 East + Jean-Michel Company/Gunpowder Bison/Martin Farms
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Sandra Long of Charm City Cupcakes + TBD
10:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Michael Costa of Pazo + Richfields Farms
Sometimes something needs to be said and it's nice when one of you says it so eloquently, more eloquently than I could have said it. EL
Paul W and Donny B, you are technically correct about Baltimore's food traditions of 50 years ago disappearing, but the same can be said of any city and any era. In the 1940s, H.L. Mencken probably waxed nostalgic about the Baltimore dining institutions that fell to the Great Fire of 1904 or to Prohibition. New Yorkers of the same era likely bemoaned the closing of the original Delmonico's, scene of Diamond Jim Brady's greatest gluttony. Elderly Parisians probably thought that Maxim's became a tourist trap with the German occupation of the 1940s followed by the American tourist invasions of the dawning jet age. And so it goes.
Those of us who weren't in Baltimore 50 years ago can't recreate the past. The best we can do is to try to discern that which is best of what remains available today.
Posted by: hmpstd | October 1, 2009 6:54 PM
By popular acclaim I'm going to give the second Comment of the Week to sue veed for his/her dissertation on sous vide, molecular gastronomy, the state of modern cuisine during the Great Recession and the reason we don't have affordable health care. I do want to disagree that readers in general aren't interested in hearing more about sous vide and foam. But they are understandably skeptical of yet another trend that might or might not taste good but will make the food more expensive. Baltimore is a Show Me city. They will embrace it if you prove to them that it's a good thing. Anyway, here's the comment. EL
Get ready for a brief dissertation on "molecular gastronomy". ...
Hmm I recall already two weeks ago that your blog topics "leached" into your review, so somehow I have a feeling that you had some unsuccessful sous vide at Alizee, but we shall see in the review.
Take for example a sous vide steak. Basically what you do is put your steak in a vacuum bag, seal it, and put it in an immersion circulator at a set temperature (say 125F) for 6 hours, or however long it takes to get there. Then your steak is perfectly med-rare throughout, and a quick toss on the grill. Now for like a sirloin, is that better than just grilling it? I dont know. Maybe if you infuse some herbs into it.
But a sousvide short rib that is cooked at say 130 for 48 hours or whatever (see also the flank steak I had at bistro blanc), youre getting a pink piece of shortrib that as just as tender as any pot roast you've had, which is a pretty interesting improvement on the original (the tenderizing effect is temperature vs time.. the collagen breaks down at say, 170 internal temp for 3 hours, but also 225 for 2 hours (but your meat is also shredded and dry), or say 130 for 35 hours. These are enhancements to the original.
Foam is out -- air is in. Again with many of these chemically thickened sauces, well say you want to make an intensely flavored chicken consomme. What do you do.. start with stock, mix egg whites with ground meat, let it bubble gently, strain it carefully, through a coffee filter etc etc. Now what if you wanted to make an intensely flavored tomato consomme. Or lime juice, or maple syrup? Kind of out of luck, unless you turn to some chemical agents (well agar which is seaweed, so its not too crazy).
Same with say a cheese sauce, or an intense red wine sauce or something -- normally it involves concentrating flavors, thickening with roux or cornstarch.. a lot of cooking and muddling of the original flavor. But with use of some chemical agents (yes I do like using this peculiar phrase more than "molecular"), you can make a very intensely flavored sauce or whatever, that is not marred by starchiness or reduced, burnt flavors, etc.
Again.. improvements over the original.
So anyway to end my little essay here, I'm not saying that these should replace common everyday food, nor are they always better. But I feel they are interesting when they can ENHANCE a dish.. make it better than could be done normally. But its also a double edged sword because Im sure there are cooks out there (not necessarily in Baltimore, but anywhere), who can do all these airs and foams and spheres and not be able to make a simple chicken stock -- there's a reason you teach long division, and not just hand kids a calculator. Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz were spectacular cooks before they tinkered with these methods -- it doesnt work the other way around. And you need a staff who is familar with these methods and can pull them off.. I really don't know if Baltimore has such a sophisticated talent pool yet (besides some obvious exceptions).
So where does all this fascination come from? I heard an interesting theory.. that basically it is a continuation of peasant food becoming haute cuisine. Back in the day, terrines and forcemeats, confit and such.. food of the poor, who HAD to eat those cast off parts, save them however they could. Even in the 50s, commercials would say "the MODERN woman uses canned celery hearts", and wonderbread.. and only the lower class would still have to make their own bread. Now.. Im dying for a good sourdough around here. Offal and charcuterie as well have had their resurgence into vogue.. it was a really desperate man who said "lets boil a pigs head, cover it with fat and gelatin, and eat it all winter". Now look at how many restaurants have a chicken liver mousse or "pate d'grand mere" on the menu.
So look even today.. what is our "peasant food".. fast food, junk food. Which is precisely where you will find agar, gellan, xanthan, methylcellulose, sodium alginate (burger king onion rings), and the like. It's just an extension of who we are (like it or not) as a society now, the old/lowerclass being elevated to the 'cutting edge'.
Anyway, this is very long, but I can't sleep, so thanks for reading. :)
Posted by: sue veed | September 30, 2009 2:41 AM
I wonder why happy hour is called "happy hour" as opposed to, say, "happy hours"?
Has it ever been only an hour long? I decided to find out using my excellent reportorial skills, in this case typing "happy hour wikipedia" into the Google search function.
That way I could find out cool stuff that was or wasn't true and annoy my colleagues (and by colleagues, I mean our old friend John McIntyre) and readers at the same time. ...
Wikipedia didn't explain the origin of the term "hour" instead of "hours," but it did inform me that in the early '80s bars started providing free hors d'oeuvres to slow down the rate of alcohol consumption.
Really.
And here I always thought it was a way of luring more customers into the bar.
(Gene Sweeney Jr./Sun photographer)
Along the lines of having you do the work while I vacation in beautiful downtown Evanston, I saved this excellent blog post idea from Trip Klaus until now. Feel free to add suggestions. EL
Recently a friend of mine suggested I start of calendar of wine specials at Baltimore and Ho Co restaurants.
Especially in today's economic climate I find these specials to be an added bonus. Perhaps you could expand my list or have others help, but I think many could be helped. (All below are bottle specials)
Here's what I have: ...
Monday- Wine Market (selected $15 wines)
Alexandra's Turf Valley (1/2 price)
Tuesday- Bistro Blanc (1/2 price)
Chingale (1/2 price)
Serafino's (1/2 price)
Corks (1/2 price cabernet and steak)
Wednesday- Lee Lynns (1/2 price)
Peter's Inn (selected wine specials)
Jack's Bistro ($18 selected wines)
Thursday- Victoria's Gastro Pub (1/2 price)
(Barbara Haddock Taylor/Sun photographer)
I have to say this excellent guest post by Robert of Cross Keys gave me a pang of guilt. My poor abandoned husband is probably having a Nathan's hot dog with a stale potato roll for dinner tonight. Here's RoCK. EL
Last week my wife went to New York to share a few meals with her friend and noted food writer David Rosengarten, which she wrote about in her blog.
Not to be outdone, I set out to create my own New York experience. I stayed home with Mr. Jefferson, and we ate Nathan’s hot dogs. The hot dogs were not bad. The same could not be said for the potato rolls I pulled out of the back of my freezer. ...
Fortunately, hot dog night was not the high point of my week. After the wife returned, the three of us went to down to Alexandria, Va. to spend the day. Alexandria is a dog-friendly city with many restaurants welcoming four-legged guests to their sidewalk tables, so we had quite a few dining options to choose from. I knew, however, what I wanted. The reason I drove down to Alexandria was to try the fish and chips at Eamonn’s a Dublin Chipper, which is operated by the same people who run Alexandria’s best restaurant, Eve. (The reason the wife wanted to go to Alexandria was to have Mr. Jefferson make a visit to Mount Vernon, which I’m not even going to try and explain.)
It wasn’t too long ago that I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to eat fish. In fact, I used to hate fish. As a kid I dreaded fishstick day at the cafeteria, which was only surpassed by the animosity I had for fishstick’s evil school lunch cousin, the fishwich. I remember my dad going to McDonald’s and ordering a Filet-o-Fish and a coffee, and wondering what would compel someone to choose that awful combination over a double cheeseburger and milkshake.
Well, I have not come around to eating sticks, wiches, or Filet-o’s; however, fish and chips have become one of my favorites; and the fish and chips at Eamonn’s are some of the best, if not the best, I have ever had.
Eamonn’s offers cod, grouper, skate and a fish of the day. I went with the large cod. The wife ordered the grouper.
Both had the same great batter that was crunchy and substantial. This is not a tempura texture. This is batter that stands up to a dousing of malt vinegar. Most importantly, the batter was cooked all the way through. Too often there is that layer of raw batter that surrounds the fish like an unappetizing membrane.
As for the fish, the cod was mild, flaky and moist. It almost had a creamy feel to it. The grouper was also mild, but it was a little sweeter and had a firmer texture. In some ways it reminded me of crab or lobster. Neither fish had any of those nasty, dark spots that bring an unwelcome fishy flavor. I’m not saying that I want my fish to taste like chicken. I just don’t want it to taste like fishy fish.
The fish came with a choice of a sauce. I went with the traditional tartar, which was very fresh tasting. She went with the Kitty O’Shea, a tartar sauce with almonds and olives. I liked it by itself, but I just couldn’t embrace it with the fish and chips. It just didn’t seem right.
For sides we split chips, coleslaw and mushy peas. The chips were outstanding, thick cut with a crispy outside and a creamy inside. The coleslaw had nice flavor, but was a little too laden with mayo. The mushy peas, one of the few things not made in house, were OK. I guess for mushy peas, unless you grew up with them, OK is probably the best they will ever be. Once you get beyond the novelty of the bright green color, you realize you are eating something that could have come out of a Gerber’s jar.
Drinks were limited to non-alcoholic beverages, as Eamonn’s liquor license only allows adult beverages to be consumed inside. Since we had the dog we were outside. This meant no Guinness. I had a Lemon Club, an Irish soda with bits of lemon that ended up being a great pairing with my deep fried and mayo-based lunch. The wife had an Irish sparkling water, which was OK. Its best attribute was that it was the one thing we had that didn’t add any extra calories.
Whatever calories we saved from our beverage selections were more than offset by dessert. They had deep-fried candy bars, and I never had one before. Well, I can’t believe I waited almost 35 years to try one of these.
We split a deep-fried Snickers bar. The inside was melted perfectly, just on the verge of losing its form but not yet liquid. The outside was the big surprise for me. I always figured the batter would be something like you would see on fried chicken or fish, heavy and crunchy. Quite the opposite, it was light and airy. It reminded me of a cinnamon twist, especially with the dusting of sugar crystals.
A trip to Eamonn’s is in the worth-the-drive category, and it is so much better than any hot dog night at home or fish stick/wich day at the cafeteria.
(Photo courtesy of RoCK's iPhone)
What was the first food you ate that was so extraordinary, so out of character, so interesting and strange that it took you out of childhood and put you firmly on the path to the foodie you would become?
For me it was an artichoke.
I was a picky kid who only ate the vegetables children ate: green beans, broccoli, lima beans, corn. I was never tempted by any of the exotic foods my parents loved. ...
And then the year I was 10, we lived in Athens. That year I ate my first artichoke, one of many new experiences. It was an epiphany. For the first time I got it that foods can be fun to eat or interesting to eat, and I might want to eat them not just because they tasted basically good the way a Hershey Bar did.
I loved the way you dipped each leaf into melted butter flavored with lemon juice and then pulled off the tender, fleshy end of the leaf with your teeth. (It took me many more years to love the taste enough to bother with the tedious scraping off of the choke to get to the delicious meat underneath.)
Thinking back upon it now, I realize it must have been the first adult food I was brave enough, or interested enough, to try.
(Algerina Perna/Sun photographer)
Our craigslist guru, turkeybone, has another gem for us. I'm guessing it's the space vacated by Tsunami, but someone out there may know better. If so, please post below. Here's the ad he found. As turkeybone said, "4 million in sales... that sounds like a pretty large deal." I wonder if Bruce Allen has seen this. EL
Restaurant Group with new Harbor East opening seeks a highly experienced and proven Executive Chef. ...
I'm noticing appetizer price creep lately.
Awhile back some people started ordering two appetizers rather than an entree, either because they wanted less food or they wanted to spend less money.
The tapas craze made this not only OK, but a cool, trendy thing to do.
Now appetizers are just as likely to be called "small plates" and cost more in relation to the entrees. ...
I think it's been getting worse recently, but I could be wrong. It always startles me to see $14 appetizers on the same menu as $20 entrees, as I did recently at the Blue Hill Tavern in Brewers Hill. Here, at least, they are called "appetizers" but are quite substantial.
It reminds me of what happened when customers stopped drinking a mixed drink or two before ordering dinner. Dessert prices got higher in relation to the rest of the meal because restaurants were selling less alcohol. (That's a totally unscientific observation of cause and effect, just my personal opinion.)
(Kenneth K. Lam/Sun photographer)
I have to say Other Reviewer Richard's review of of the new Kolpers today surprised me. Not the review itself, but the kind of restaurant it ended up being.
Richard is so much more hip than I am he doesn't usually handle the Marconi's of the Jones Falls restaurants. (His phrase. I laughed out loud.)
I would say this is a terrible location, and no restaurant can ever survive where Kolpers is. But then I remember Woodberry Kitchen.
Sometimes it isn't location, location, location.
(Jed Kirschbaum/Sun photographer)
Sometimes I have such brilliant ideas I amaze even myself.
In this case, I told food editor Sarah KK that I was going to come up with 100 things every Baltimore foodie should do at least once to deserve the name.
And by "I," I mean "we."
Then she can use the list as a centerpiece for the Taste section. ...
As long as you keep the suggestions coming, the story will practically write itself.
Now these are not necessarily gourmet experiences. They can range from ordering a snowball with marshmallow on top to discussing a bottle of wine with Tony Foreman.
They need to be things that are quintessentially Baltimore, like "Eat Bertha's mussels" (no matter what you think of Bertha's mussels). They don't have to be unique to the city, but they do have to have some important connection. You can't just say "Eat heirloom tomatoes," as good as that advice might be.
Do we put some weird condiment on something that no other part of the country does? That would qualify.
I'm going to get the two obvious ones out of the way, just so you can be more creative:
1) Have a crab cake from [go ahead; fill in the blank]
2) Pick steamed hard shells at Mr. Bill's Terrace Inn.
Now it's your turn.
(Kim Hairston/Sun photographer)
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I know it's bad of me, but I still laugh every time I reread this comment, which was in response to a very odd comment under the Richard Pirone entry. And anything that can make me laugh out loud as the end of Daylight Savings Time looms gets my vote for Comment of the Week. EL
Well, jjt, unless you somehow caused his death, remorse would indeed be an odd response to the news. You would not have had to leave your preferred neighborhoods to enjoy Country Fare, but then it's probably just as well for the rest of us that you stay put.